Grow and Similar Selection Selects Entire Canvas

[chava_maimon]

Dear All,

I teach Photoshop, and a couple of my students are having a situation where they will use the Grow or Similar select functions, and the entire canvas gets selected (marching ants around the edge); I have tried to troubleshoot this without success. Any ideas (even those I may have thought of 🙂 would be appreciated!

Chava

[lambiloon · Accepted solution]

Hi first you need to understand what is grow or similar.

Grow means to select more pixels if you have selected few in same direction

Similar means to select same color pixels in the canvas.

Regards

[chava_maimon]

Hi Ali,

Yes, thank you so much :).

Chava

[c.pfaffenbichler]

Could you please post screenshots with the pertinent Panels (Toolbar, Layers, Channels, Options Bar, …) visible? 

[chava_maimon]

Thanks so much for your reply - unfortunately, I don't have direct access to any screenshots - that's a good point though; it would've been helpful if I had done that when working with them in class (virtual class).

[Chuck Uebele]

It might also depend on how they're make the selection, in the first place. If there are a lot of semi transparent pixels in the selection that are too transparent to show the matching ants, then grow or similar might might push them an others over the threshold, which might include the entire canvas.

[chava_maimon]

Hi Chuck,

That's a good point; in this case, all student were working on the same image, and it appeared that the correct layer was selected.

Chava

[jane-e]

• How are they making their initial selection?
• What are the settings in the options bar if they are using a selection tool?
• Is everyone using the same document?
• Is everyone on the same layer?

~ Jane

[chava_maimon]

Hi Jane,

All students were working on the same image, as was I - I did view the screen (virtual class) and the correct layer was selected. I checked the options bar and nothing seemed "odd". I thought a feathering might throw it off, but it was set at 0.

Chava