Sometimes you may wish to create very complex selections like complicated shapes, or selections that require painstaking detail. It may also be the case that you intend on using a certain selection repeatedly in several projects. For either of these situations, it is probably wise to save your selection rather than recreate it every time you need it.

 

To save a selection, first build the selection as you require, and then right click on the image and choose Save Selection from the menu. (You could also choose Select -> Save Selection from the menu bar.) Either of these actions will display the Save Selection dialog box as shown.

 

 

Now, enter a name for your selection and click the OK button.

 

Your selection will be saved as a channel, and it will be accessible on the Channels palette.

 

 

If you wish, you can save the image and the new selection will be saved with it. When you open the image again, the selection will be available to you.

 

To load the selection, choose Select -> Load Selection from the menu bar after you re-open the image file. This will display the following dialog box.

 

 

Just choose the selection you saved from the names in the drop list labelled Channel, and click OK. Your selection will be loaded back onto your image just as it was before.