Select processing for select subject consistently misses the I in APRIL in this image

Hi Sam! I would recommend using the Object Selection Tool, rather than Select Subject for selecting words. I used the OST with the rectangular marquee around APRIL 2026 and all characters were selected. Explanation below:

Select Subject is built around whole objects—people, pets, products, obvious foreground shapes—not around reading or selecting individual letters. The model is tuned for “what is the main thing in this scene?” not “what is each glyph in this word?”

Why “April” can look like a bug

• Typography isn’t “a subject” in the same sense. Text is a grid of strokes; the tool may treat the headline as one blob, several blobs, or background + fragments, depending on contrast and thickness.
• The letter “I” is especially fragile. It’s a thin vertical bar with almost no area and no curves. Edge-based and segmentation-style approaches often merge it into the background, split it from the rest of the word, or drop it as noise—especially on high-contrast flat graphics (like solid color + white type).
• So this isn’t really “missing one letter” in a reliable way—it’s using a subject tool on a task it wasn’t designed to optimize for. Consistency on letter-perfect text selection isn’t a promise of Select Subject.

Hope this helps!
Hannah Nicollet
QE, Photoshop