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Rotating the rectangular selection tool "M" prior to making selection


littleberry

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I hate to ask dumb questions, but, one thing I wish I could get in photoshop is the ability to rotate a couple of the up-to-down or right-to-left tools - eg. when you select "M" (a selection rectangle), it would be nice if you could ROTATE the rectangle after you have defined its dimensions to any angle you chose so that your selection is bounded by the rotated box. Then, you could use any of the normally oriented transform edit tools (such as scale,skew, perspective, distort) that would apply against the rotated box using the rotated orientation instead of up-to-down or right-to-left. The same for the warp predefines - that way, you could focus in on any particular portion of a photo (that will probably NOT be oriented up-down/right-left) and use the predefined, but rotated, warp selection to adjust that portion in whatever orientation you find it in the photo. Of course, one way to achieve this now is to make the selection, then rotate it to where it is oriented up-down, and THEN apply the warp predefine (such as arch), and then reverse the rotation back to its original orientation, and you've got your desired effect - BUT, and this is a big drawback, when you rotate, then apply the arch, and then reverse the rotate, you lose some level of pixel precision. So, if any of the later versions of photoshop (after CS2) allow for rotating the normal selection methods PRIOR to affixing the selection, that would really make a big difference for those cases where your object you want to edit is not under normal orientation (up-down/right-left).

I am hoping you gurus will be tolerant of what may seem like a dumb question, but, I'm still learning. There is so much it can be overwhelming.
 

peta62

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Hello,
when you select and go to Edit->Transform you do not have options like rotate, skew, scale, warp, perspective ? Or it is not what you want. Plus you have much more freedom with object if you put it on the separate layer.
 

littleberry

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Say, just for an example only, I have a photo of a baseball bat at an angle (say 32 degrees, just for instance). I want to make the baseball bat thicker, except at the neck, which I want to stay as is, and, I want to make the blunt end of the bat to be more arched (something that warp with arch would do nicely, if the bat were straight up and down in my photo). Now, if I rotate the bat so that it is straight up and down, then use scale horizontal only to make it thicker (excluding the neck), and then use warp arch for the top end, and then, rotate the bat back to its original 32 degree angle, I'd get my result. But, if the bat has a pattern on it, like letters and some design, all that will lose details in the double rotation. I'd like to apply the warp arch at an angle, and, I'd like to apply the scale horizontal at an angle.

If I could use the "M" option to select the bat, but, have the "M" rectangle rotated 32 degrees before I make the selection, then, that would avoid me having to rotate my selection (the bat).

Maybe I'm not explaining it clearly - there is a difference.
 

IamSam

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Hello and welcome to PSG.

Use your Rectangular marquis Tool to create a rectangle (M).

When creating the rectangle, you can add several key functions as well that affect the creation of the rectangle such as shift, option, and one I use all the time is the space bar which allows you to move the rectangel anywhere you like.

Once you have the rectangular selection and you want to transform it in all the usual ways including rotate, go to SELECT > TRANSFORM SELECTION > and transform the selection in any way you desire.

Your may be using the wrong tool. For this ability you will have to use the Pen Tool. The Pen Tool will create paths that can easily be altered in the manner you desire.
 
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IamSam

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littleberry said:
Say, just for an example only, I have a photo of a baseball bat at an angle (say 32 degrees, just for instance). I want to make the baseball bat thicker, except at the neck, which I want to stay as is, and, I want to make the blunt end of the bat to be more arched (something that warp with arch would do nicely, if the bat were straight up and down in my photo). Now, if I rotate the bat so that it is straight up and down, then use scale horizontal only to make it thicker (excluding the neck), and then use warp arch for the top end, and then, rotate the bat back to its original 32 degree angle, I'd get my result. But, if the bat has a pattern on it, like letters and some design, all that will lose details in the double rotation. I'd like to apply the warp arch at an angle, and, I'd like to apply the scale horizontal at an angle.

Let's approach your problem of the bat.


Here I have a BBat that I would like to alter.
I need the bat on it's own layer.
I use the Polygonal Lasso tool to make a selection of the bat.
I hit Cmd/Cntrl + J to copy the selection to it's own layer, which we will call the BB layer.
Screen Shot 2015-12-28 at 9.57.56 AM.png

Create a new layer below the BB layer and fill with the appropriate color, in this case white.
Select/highlight the BB layer and hit Cmd/Cntrl + T to enter free transform.
Now I cant rotate the entire bat into any position I need.
Screen Shot 2015-12-28 at 10.03.37 AM.png

Screen Shot 2015-12-28 at 10.04.03 AM.png

Hit the checkmark or enter to accept the state change.

Now you are free to use any of the the FreeTtransform functions you desire to alter the bat.

Here I will use Skew with shift + option, and free transform to stretch the bat back to it's original length.
Screen Shot 2015-12-28 at 10.10.33 AM.png

Screen Shot 2015-12-28 at 10.10.44 AM.png

There are other ways to do this so you don't get distortion, but that's for another day.

Good luck.
 
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IamSam

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The above technique also works if you make an exact selection of the bat by any of the other selection processes and tools.
Screen Shot 2015-12-28 at 10.13.47 AM.png
 
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