Quick Mask will allow you to create your own complete mask on a picture or subject or it will allow you to add to a selection made by any of the selection tools.

A practical example is probably the best way to show this tools capabilities.

If you look at the picture above you can quickly make a mask of this sign and convert that to a selection via Quick Mask.

Click on the Quick Mask icon to the right of the two shown above and select one of your paint tools.

As you paint on the surface to determine your mask a colour overlay will show you the area you are covering. This can be changed in the options palette along with the other option of selecting a masked area or a selected area. Double click the Quick Mask icon for this option palette.

You can also use either hard edged or soft edged brushes from your brush palette.

Once you have completed your quick mask, click the icon to the left and your mask will be changed to a selection as shown below.

You can either copy your selection to another layer or inverse the selection and remove the background as shown below. Make sure you change the default Background thumbnail in your layers palette or you will not cut to a transparency.

You can also use Quick Mask to repair or improve selections made with any of the selection tools. Because Quick Mask is not a selection you can switch to it at any time. If you find that the selection tools like the magic wand tool does not select all of the area you want, switch to quick mask. The masked or selected area will show as a red transparent overlay as shown in the earlier example. Using either black or white you can add to or remove parts of your selection.

When complete hit the left icon to return to a selection.