Photoshop Elements

I have PSE 10. When selecting an object, sometimes the selection point is away from the edge. How do I push just that point onto the edge without deselecting the object?

Which selection tool are you using? Each of the selection tools require a slightly different technique, although holding down the Alt key turns each of them into a "deselect" tool. For example, if you are using the Quick Select tool and the selection strays outside what you want, hold down the Alt key and carefully brush the area to push the selection back. Sometimes it works to switch to the Selection Brush and carefully deselect areas or objects.

The tool is the magnetic lasso. CTL moves things, and ALT seems to re-activate selection, but not to correct selection.

(big grin) They tell me you get used to using this program.

If there is good contrast between the object you are trying to select and the background, try the quick selection tool. (I know that doesn't answer your question.)
In Ps, ALT and painting moves it back towards your edge, so I'd assume it's the same for PSE.

What are you selecting? This is the overall best way that I've found for objects with hard edges: Selecting areas in PS.

Just messing around with a photo taken on an "architecture tour". White statue. Grey house. White lattice under the house. Green grass. Typical Greek goddess type statue. Some places, GREAT contrast. Other places, not so great. The magnetic lasso has great "forgiveness" of not so great contrast, but no forgiveness of mistakes with the mouse.

The automatic selection tool is good at selecting the outside, but has a BUNCH of zones selected inside. I don't know how to delete the unwanted selections, so, for now, it's useless to me. In addition, it gets confused by the low contrast zones, and needs to have the selection nudged.

PhotosGuy wrote in post #16350240
What are you selecting? This is the overall best way that I've found for objects with hard edges: Selecting areas in PS.

AWESOME! Answered it! NAILED it! I was dragging. BIG mistake!

Now, on to other conundra.

My answer to the magnetic lasso is, "give up, try something else.". Seriously, don't forget that you can select what you don't want and then invert the selection. Sometimes that works better.

The trouble with the magic wand is it creates a bunch of selection zones I don't want. Haven't figured out, yet, how to get rid of the unwanted selections, and keep the one I want. Magic lasso seems to be the easier to use, so far.

buffumjr wrote in post #16350467
The trouble with the magic wand is it creates a bunch of selection zones I don't want. Haven't figured out, yet, how to get rid of the unwanted selections, and keep the one I want. Magic lasso seems to be the easier to use, so far.

This is where you ALT+click the zones that you don't want.

One way to do that is switch to the Selection Brush, hold down the Alt key, and brush away the unwanted selections. Brush hardness and opacity settings are useful to control how the brush behaves.

Also, with the other selection tools the Tolerance slider and Contiguous checkbox are useful for controlling how much they select.

Try adjusting the tolerance level with the magic wand tool, it changes how similar a colour has to be to be selected. If you have multiple layers you may want to select sample all layers too, or only the active layer is used for the selection.

Alan