This excerpt courtesy Mark S. Johnson Photography and Radiant Vista

Have you ever tried to select something really tricky, such as human hair, using Photoshop's Magic Wand, Lasso tool, or Color Range? Hours later, your hands are shaking and the subject in the photo looks like she's lost a battle with a beauty salon.

The tool you need is already in your photo: It's a channel. While some people are uncomfortable with channels, there's no need to fear them. Expert photographer Mark S. Johnson will walk you through every step of the process. He's even supplied sample photos for you to experiment with. Just click on the links below to save the images to your computer.

We've posted this excerpt as a PDF file. To open the PDF file in your Web browser, click "Selections." You can also download the PDF to your machine for later viewing.

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Note that this excerpt is part of a larger ebook on photographic techniques. For more about the Photographer's Photoshop CS2 Companion, see Mark's bookstore.