Selection Mania

I thought this was a pretty straightforward assignment - to start with a blank canvas, select the areas to duplicate John's image, and color in the selected area. Of course the trick to this assignment was doing all the selection at one time, then the painting all at once. I've done enough in Photoshop elements to know the basics of selections. But I found, as usual, that I didn't know as much as I thought I did. I had not used the shift and alt keys to add and subtract from selections. It was a smooth process once I figured out that to subtract the corners to make the cross, I had to start with the cursor outside the selection. I tried first to line my cursor up on the edge of the selection. But it didn't work. I had to be outside the selection. I also learned that when using the polygonal lasso tool, I didn't have to hold the mouse button down while I was drawing. I just had to left click at the corners. Also, I'm not so good at drawing with my mouse. So my circle and triangles are a little off in size and in position. (I even tried doing this a second time with the grid showing (view, show, grid). It didn't help much. But I got the idea of the procedure for selecting, adding and subtracting from a selection.

The most exciting part of this for me was finding out about the quick selection tool. I didn't use it for this assignment, but I will use it a lot in other projects.
Ann