Filed under: How-tos, Tips and tricks, Leopard
Leopard Love: Advanced Selection in Preview
Over at MurphyMac, Murphy has posted a great tutorial about the new Leopard selection tools for Preview.app. As usual, there's an excellent screencast that walks you through the entire process. The new "Extract Shape" tool lets you draw a rough outline around an object and then use selection handles to fit the outline to the shape. The screen cast then goes on to describe how you can matte around the selection to control the edge texture. It's a tidy and easy-to-follow technique that seems to produce nicely trimmed results.
![TUAW [Cafepress]](http://www.blogsmithmedia.com/www.tuaw.com/media/tuaw-cafepress-promo.png)
Reader Comments (Page 1 of 1)
xenon said 4:22PM on 12-18-2007
Man theses minor details are very important and need to be highlighted rather than the fancy time machine and back to my mac shyte. This update and the one about Power searching in Leopard Mail are seriously making me think about the upgrade.
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Kwahnoom said 4:25PM on 12-18-2007
That's one SAD looking kitten...
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Billy K said 4:55PM on 12-18-2007
I maed you a cookie, TUAW...
...but I eated it.
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Galley said 9:19AM on 12-19-2007
I Can Has Cheezburger, FTW!
Galley said 9:19AM on 12-19-2007
I Can Has Cheezburger, FTW!
Marc Fiszman said 4:58PM on 12-18-2007
Preview is steadily shaping up as the next Photoshop killer.
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Ed said 5:36PM on 12-18-2007
I would gladly choose a combination of Preview and Pixelmator over the 'Shop.
Billy K said 5:52PM on 12-18-2007
"I would gladly choose a combination of Preview and Pixelmator over the 'Shop."
Needs more CMYK.
B. said 5:51PM on 12-18-2007
Preview.app --> tools --> adjust color = crash
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papafew said 6:34PM on 12-18-2007
preview.app --> tools --> adjust color = adjust color palette (!?)
Jason said 8:37PM on 12-18-2007
Preview crashes on me every single time I attempt to save a file after using the Adjust Color pallet! On both my MacBook (with a clean Leopard install) and my Mini (with an upgrade from Tiger.) The only thing Preview does reliably for me is crash. It's almost great to hear someone else say they're having the same problem! I feel left out of the Preview Party because it's unusable for me.
alan said 6:40PM on 12-18-2007
I followed along with my test .jpg until the select dropdown menu. Mine doesn't drop down. This is with an original .jpg from my canon digital rebel xti. I tried some other images (.jpg, .gif) and I can never get any options under the select menu. Tried on another 10.5.1 machine too and also didn't work. Ideas?
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BobbyW said 7:49PM on 12-18-2007
Alan - did you try holding down the mouse button? This dropdown doesn't seem to respond very quickly to a click.
alan said 8:47PM on 12-18-2007
Thanks a bunch! I thought something was messed up on my system as I've seen a similar tutorial before (but for beta versions of 10.5) and I hadn't ever been able to get this to work. I assumed that a simple click would make the dropdown work as in, well, just about everything. You do have to hold it down (and keep holding it down) to make it work. THANKS!
B. said 8:30PM on 12-18-2007
When I adjust the colors on preview it won't ever let me save...it crashes!
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Alex said 3:23AM on 12-19-2007
i have the same problem. Leopard is #!@!! buggy and Preview crashes every single time(seems like it's related to MacBooks 1st generation). I'm seriously thinking of switching back to Tiger.
even more: i can't use sudo command, because for some reason although su root works, sudo won't(and, yes, I did check sudoers file); trying to scan several pages worked for the 1st two, then refused to work(even after restart) - I needed to use Windows for this.
Man, I'm *really* dissappointed by Leopard, I'd prefer a stable system to a bunch of new features I can't use because of crashes.
Stormbuster said 4:02AM on 12-19-2007
Alex: Colour adjustment in preview on a G5 Powermac > crashes as well, so it's not related to MacIntel.
emmapwork said 11:55PM on 12-20-2007
Ok, here is a patch to get rid of the crash under leopard but you get back to tiger's preview. At least your machine runs with limited functionnality, it's better than nothing.
To download the patch:
http://www.mediafire.com/?0gzlzhwdamo -> tiger's preview patched to run under leopard
Here is how I get it patched:
http://www.mediafire.com/?1tvexx4x4ir -> how to
Hope it helps.
Josh said 8:49AM on 12-19-2007
Color adjustment (as well as Advanced Selection) in Preview work fine for me on my MacBook Pro, for what it's worth. These are fantastic tips! I'll be using Preview even more often now. Thanks for sharing.
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JoAnn said 1:30AM on 1-07-2008
So, with all that is said about the "crash". Does anyone know how to stop the application, so as not to lose the other documents you happen to also be working on without losing them? I was in iPhotos editing and then tried to email it and for an hour now the color spiral has been going round and round and round. Again someone please tell how to stop the runaway application.
Thanks
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