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6. The Tools in the Toolbox / 6.3 Tools for Image Layers

### 6.3.4 Free Lasso, Rectangle Lasso, Circle Lasso, Horizontal Lasso Line, Vertical Lasso Column

Creating and Editing Lassos

Lassos are used for cutting out and moving image parts. Furthermore they restrict the area affected by other tools

The free lasso lets you input a vector path by clicking and dragging. By clicking, you create lines. By dragging you create a freehand curve. You can expand an existing lasso by holding Shift, you can reduce it by holding Ctrl (Windows) or Command (macOS). Creating a free lasso is stopped by double-clicking (or right clicking).

If you hold Shift while creating a circle or rectangle lasso, width and height will have a fixed ratio. This behavior can be customized by using the switch proportional in the Tool Settings. If it is turned on, lassos will always be created proportionally and only pressing Shift allows free creation. When working in proportional mode a list allows to choose the ratio between width and height. If there is no appropriate ratio listed, you can create your own by entering for example "13:10". After creating a non-proportional lasso, its ratio will automatically be inserted in the list. By typing Tab the ratio is switched: "13:10" will become "10:13".

A lasso is deleted by clicking outside its frame or by using Edit/Deselect (Ctrl+D on Windows and Command+D on macOS).

The lasso can be scaled and rotated like a normal layer (see chapter 6.2.1).

Soft Edge adjusts the smoothness of the edge of a lasso. If the lasso is already filled, it will have no effect.

By double-clicking one of the lasso icons, the lasso dialog appears. With this dialog you can create a lasso by numbers (see chapter 7.6.28).

Cropping the Active Layer

Crop reduces an image to the size of the lasso. Cropping is especially useful for removing unwanted borders of scanned images. If Straighten is activated, the selected area will be transformed to normal, straight rectangle. This feature can be used to align slanting scans or to remove perspective distortions of photographs. Cropping with the Lasso tool is always changing the size of the active layer, while the crop tool (see chapter 6.2.16) is changing the size of the whole document. If the active layer is the background layer (see chapter 2.11), the result of both tools is similar.

Enhance Mask Edge

The Tool Settings offer a way for enhancing the edge of a mask. In order to do so PhotoLine is examining the image content at the edge of the mask and is creating intermediate mask values depending on its similarity to the content of the selection. Width controls the width of the area, that is examined, and pressing Enhance Edge executes the function.

Remove Object

PhotoLine can remove the selection in a "smart" way. This means the selection will be replaced by nearby parts of the image in a way, that the removal of the selection is noticeable as little as possible. Usually it is enough to create a selection and delete it with Remove Object. Removal is a random-based process, so using the function repeatedly creates a different result every time. So if you are not satisfied, simply use Remove Object once more.

In difficult situations you have additional ways to modify the result:

- Define Neighbourhood
Usually PhotoLine is searching in the whole picture for possible image parts, that can be used for replacing the selection. But if a large part of the image isn't well suited due to its content, that will influence the result in a bad way. Therefore you can use Define Neighbourhood to restrict searching to an appropriate area.
- Define Image Structure
If the object, that should be removed, is in front of a structured background, you can use Define Image Stucture to lay down the course of the structure. Examples for structured backgrounds are i.e. paved paths and lawns.

For removing small parts in an image, you can use the Remove Brush (see chapter 6.3.18), that works in a similar way.