How do I delete an already saved selection

[tuffytaff]

I have worked on a drawing in Photoshop with more than 50 saved selections, and at this point I'm no longer able to save a selection in my excisting document (it will only allow me to save selection to document- and channel destination "New"). How do I delete some of my previously saved selections?

[barbara_a · Accepted solution]

Photoshop has a limit of 53 alpha channels, saved selections. To delete them, under the Windows menu open the Channels panel. Highlight the channel you want to delete and either click the Delete icon or drag it to the Delete icon.

[tuffytaff]

Thank you for a good explanation Barbara, I'm now able to delete- and save additional selections!

[barbara_a]

You're welcome! I'm glad that worked for you.

[c.pfaffenbichler]

One can circumvent the limitation by creating Groups or Layers without content and applying Layer Masks to those. 

[Semaphoric]

If you do save the selctions to "new document", you can then load them back into the original doc. You can have as many of these "new docs" as you like, for an effectively unlimited number of saved selections.

You could then save all of these to a folder, and select all the files in the folder and open them en masse back into Photoshop, to continue working later.

[JJMack]

Yes you can work around the low 53 number of Alpha channel.  You can keep them in you document by add layer masks to layers or layers  sets. Or have them external in other documents.  All work around cause additional work to create them and also to load them as selection because you can not simply loads the saved selection by name.  If you have then in external document there are additional problems for resizing the document would require one to resize the external document as well.   The 53 Alpha channel limit is a PIA IMO.

[jane-e]

"Photoshop has a limit of 53 alpha channels, saved selections."

"you can work around the low 53 number of Alpha channel."

Hi TuffyTaff,

Barbara correctly answered your question about deleting Alpha Channels, but a couple of folks mentioned a limit of 53 alpha channels, which (strictly speaking) is not true.

Photoshop has a limit of 56 channels total.

• Since most folks work in RGB (as do I), they have 3 color channels and 53 alpha channels, which is where this number came from
• In CMYK, there are 4 color channels and 52 alpha channels
• In Grayscale, there is one color channel and 55 alpha channels
• Et cetera

https://helpx.adobe.com/photoshop/using/channel-basics.html

~ Jane