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Photoshop 2024 Adjustment brush gets auto selections, how do partial adjustments on photos the easy way

Colin Smith

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Ai selections in Photoshop with the new Adjustment Brush.

You may be aware of the Adjustment brush added in Photoshop 2024. It does the same thing as an Adjustment Layer and painting on the mask. Its easier and quicker to use, especially for newer Photoshop users. This new feature added a lot of usefulness to this tool, where even advanced users may see this as a worthwhile shortcut. Lets look at it now.

Adjusting an object within a photo. Brighten a person.

Let’s brighten the woman in this photo. This example will allow you to see how this tool works.

starting image of beautiful woman hiking

Choose the Adjustment Brush from the toolbox. Can’t find the adjustment brush? Here is the fix.

how to find the Adjustment Brush in Photoshop

Click on the adjustment in the toolbar at the top, to choose an adjustment.

Choose an adjustment type for the adjustment brush

Choose Exposure.

use exposure to brighten a photo in photoshop

Click the icon to turn on object selection.

The object selection tool in the Adjustment Brush makes ai selections in Photoshop

As you roll over different parts of the image, you will see different objects highlighted. Sometimes, it will show the whole person, other times, part of the person.

To select a highlighted area, click.

Hover to highlight an object in Photoshop 2024

Notice the adjustment is applied as a new Adjustment Layer and a Layer Mask is created for the selected area.

Click to add an adjustment layer

Make adjustments in the Properties panel to adjust the masked part of the photo.

make adjustments to Exposure in Photoshop

Adding to the selection with the Adjustment Brush in Photoshop

Notice the woman is adjusted, but her backpack doesn’t match the photo, because it wasn’t part of the selection mask,

With the Adjustment Brush still selected, click on the Object Selection button in the top toolbar, and then, roll over the backpack.

How. to add to selection in Photoshop

Click to select.

Notice it’s added to the mask and takes on the adjustments immediately, because it’s part of the same mask.

combining layer masks

Changing the background color of a photo in Photoshop with the Adjustment Brush.

Let’s look at a different example, so we can use the tool in a different way. We will change the background color.

Choose the Adjustment Brush, as before.

Choose Hue/Saturation as the Adjustment type.

Click the Object selection option in the toolbar.

select the woman in photoshop

As you roll overe the image, notice different parts are highlighted.

How to select different parts of an object

What we want to do, is select the entire foreground in a single selection. We can’t do this by rolling over in this case.

Instead go to the taskbar (I positioned the taskbar by the top toolbar here).

Choose Apply To Object. (If you are confused, see the video at the top).

Use Apply to Object tool in the task bar in Photoshop

With Apply to Object, drag to make a selection around the entire area that we want to select.

Select a person in photoshop

It nicely makes a selection and masks it out.

You can add to the mask, or remove from the mask, using selection tools, or use the black or white brush. How to use layer masks in Photoshop.

Selection to layer mask

Let’s inverse (swap) the selection, so that the background will be selected, instead of the foreground.

Press Cmd+I (Ctrl+I Windows).

How to inverse a selection to select the background

Adjust the hue in the Properties Panel to change the color.

change the color of the background in Photoshop

I hope this tutorial helped you see how to use the Object Selection tools built into the Adjustment Brush in Photoshop. It’s always good to know different ways to do things.

Thanks for checking out this week’s Photoshop tutorial.

Colin


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10 thoughts on “Photoshop 2024 Adjustment brush gets auto selections, how do partial adjustments on photos the easy way

  1. June 25, 2024 at 4:16 pm

    Fantastic! Applies directly to a current project I’m working on. Thanks!

  2. Nancy
    June 26, 2024 at 4:14 am

    Will the adjustment brush work in Photoshop elements

  3. Leonard Modderman
    June 26, 2024 at 6:08 am

    Very informative as always

  4. PhotoRetouchPro
    June 26, 2024 at 2:41 pm

    Have you tried this with curves setting? It crashes Photoshop for me.

    1. Colin Smith
      June 26, 2024 at 5:58 pm

      Yes, it worked fine on mine

  5. Robyn Aldridge
    June 26, 2024 at 7:57 pm

    I shall try that at the first available opportunity. Thank you, Colin.

  6. June 27, 2024 at 11:18 am

    Great tut, as usual, Colin. With the selections on the first image, they kept adding to the original. How do I select different regions that require totally different adjustments?

    Thanks

  7. Richard W Kelley
    June 28, 2024 at 5:31 am

    Thank you Colin! This is a GREAT tool!!!!!!!!!

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