how to shrink selection by certain amount of pixels from the border?

[29a6269930]

hi

i'm not good using photoshop, i just installed the pre realease cs6 and trying to find a way of shrinking the marquee selection by certain amount of pixels from the selection border

i found expand selection but it doesn't allow me to type nigative value plz help

[Chris Cox]

Select -> Modify -> Contract

[Noel Carboni]

Noting that one can't contract a selection that touches the visible edge of the canvas (Contract is grayed-out) and the Border entry gives one a feathered edge, what do you really suggest, Chris? 

We've discussed this before... Some old version of Photoshop - I forget which - used to allow Contract when the entire image was selected, and that was actually USEFUL.

-Noel

[29a6269930]

you're true Contract worked just fine but not when the selection touching the canvas, is there a tip on how to do it?

[Trevor.Dennis]

As Noel says, Select -> Modify -> Contract   is not available when the entire canvas is selected.  The answer is Select > Transform selection.  This also gives precise control of the changes in the Options bar.

[EDIT]  If you are just going to drag a corner handle, don't forget that the Alt/Opt key will cause all four sides to contract by the same amount.

[Noel Carboni]

Interesting workaround, but not all that easily usable, unfortunately, if all you want is to exclude a couple of pixels around every edge.  I found that if I changed the interpolation method to Nearest Neighbor and the units in px it became more direct, and the units stuck for nexxt time, but then unfortunately those same things stuck for the next time I used Edit - Free Transform on a real image.  Leaving it on "Nearest Neighbor" would almost certainly result in a screwup later.

-Noel

[Jeff Arola]

One way is to go to qiuck mask, Select>All>Edit>Stroke with inside and the amount you want then exit qiuck mask.

[Trevor.Dennis]

R_Kelly wrote:

One way is to go to qiuck mask, Select>All>Edit>Stroke with inside and the amount you want then exit qiuck mask.

Hey, that is a pretty cool work around.  Hats off to you!

[morgen.heywood]

You're a genius. Great suggestion.

[29a6269930]

thank you so much guys you are very helpful

just one more question :

i found interesting thing, when you do Select > Transform selection and press alt+shift and drag mouse, it will shrink the selection from both sides but not evenly like this:

plz any more tips on how to make it evenly

thanks

[Jeff Arola · Accepted solution]

Perhaps the easiest way is to use this script: Contract Canvas Selection

http://morris-photographics.com/photoshop/scripts/contract-selection.html

Haven't had a chance to try it in cs6 though.

Yes it does work in photoshop cs6.

[29a6269930]

@R_Kelly

wow, that worked very good thank you so much

http://i43.tinypic.com/2mo5kiq.jpg

i love you guys

[Jeff Arola]

In Creative Cloud versions of photoshop starting with CC 2014 one can check Apply effect at canvas bounds, so the aforementioned script (Contract Canvas Selection) is no longer needed.