Selections, Part Three: The Extract Filter with John Reuter

Our look at selections continues with a comparative look at the Extract filter and a selection created with the Pen Tool and Channel conversion. Students often ask me why do I prefer to use the traditional methods utilizing channels when newer tools such as Extract are available. My feeling is that once you master the traditional tools, they don’t take any longer to execute a refined selection than the Extract filter does. As you will see, the Extract filter does have some limitations such as inability to work on 16 bit files and the fact that it eliminates the pixels outside of the selection. Some artists do favor it however and I encourage you to see for yourself which works better for you.