Photoshop Tip: How To Expand Rectangular Selections & Keep Them Crisp


Posted: April 17th, 2009 | Author: Jennifer Farley

If you make a rectangular selection in Photoshop, and you find it’s not big enough you COULD make it bigger by using Select > Modify > Expand. This will work if you only need to expand by about 4 or 5 pixels, any more than that and you’ll notice that the corners start to become round.

selectionexpand1 Photoshop Tip: How To Expand Rectangular Selections & Keep Them Crisp

So here’s a better way to expand;

1. Make your selection.

2. Press Ctrl+T (win) or Cmd + T (mac) to bring up the Free Transform bounding box.

selectionexpand2 Photoshop Tip: How To Expand Rectangular Selections & Keep Them Crisp

3. Simply click and drag one of the bounding box handles and pull your selection to the required size. Press Enter or Return to complete the transformation and voila! Nice crisp corners on your expanded selection.

selectionexpand3 Photoshop Tip: How To Expand Rectangular Selections & Keep Them Crisp

You can transform any selection of any shape in this way. I’d love to hear your selection tips, any you’d like to share?

Related posts:

  1. Creating Photo-Grid Posters In Photoshop
  2. Photoshop Tip: Copy & Transform At The Same Time
  3. Photoshop : Tutorial – Adding a moon to your photographs
  4. Photoshop : Tutorial – Reflective Text
  5. Photoshop : Tutorials – Create a simple 3D logo

Filed under: All, Photoshop Tutorials, Website Design | Tags: | 2 Comments »

Related Posts:


Photoshop : Quick Tip – Increase and Decrease the size of your Selection
When you make a selection, you can easily make that...

Photoshop Quick Tip: Adjust your selection size
When you have made a selection in Photoshop, you can...

Guest Photoshop Tutorial : Make a simple logo
Once again I'm delighted to post a Photoshop tutorial...
Thumblated Related Post

2 Comments on “Photoshop Tip: How To Expand Rectangular Selections & Keep Them Crisp”

  1. 1 Heather T. said at 3:33 pm on April 17th, 2009:

    Have you ever needed a bit of pattern just exactly the size of your selection? Here’s a tip on how to get a selection from one file into another:

    -Make your selection in document 1
    -Make sure you have the rectangular or elliptical marquee tool selected
    -Position it inside your selection and make sure it shows a little rectangle
    -Drag the selection over to document 2 and position it as you like
    -Copy, move to document 1, and paste! Ta dah!

    Heather T.s last blog post..Interviewed!

  2. 2 Jennifer said at 8:36 am on April 20th, 2009:

    Thanks Heather!
    Great tip.

    Jennifers last blog post..Photoshop Tip: How To Expand Rectangular Selections & Keep Them Crisp


Leave a Reply