Selection Tools

All selection tools -- marquee, ellipse, lasso, magic wand -- and selection modifiers.

Rectangular Marquee (M)

Draw rectangular selections by clicking and dragging on the canvas. Hold Shift to constrain to a square, or Alt to draw from center.

1. Press M to select the Marquee tool.
2. Click and drag on the canvas to define the rectangle.
3. Release to finalize the selection. Marching ants appear around the selected area.

Elliptical Marquee

Draw elliptical (circular) selections. Hold Shift to constrain to a perfect circle.

1. Press M then cycle to the Elliptical variant (Shift+M or options bar).
2. Click and drag to define the ellipse.
3. Release to finalize.

Lasso (L)

Draw freehand selections by clicking and dragging. Supports freehand and polygonal modes.

1. Press L to select the Lasso tool.
2. Freehand: Click and drag to draw a freehand path. Release to close the selection.
3. Polygonal: Click points to create straight edges. Double-click to close.

Magic Wand (W)

Select areas of similar color by clicking. Adjust tolerance in the options bar to control how similar colors must be to be included.

1. Press W to select the Magic Wand tool.
2. Set the Tolerance value (0-255) in the options bar. Lower values select more similar colors.
3. Check or uncheck "Contiguous" to control whether only adjacent pixels are selected.
4. Click on the canvas to select the area.

Selection Modes

Combine selections using modifier keys or the mode buttons in the options bar.

Select All / Deselect / Inverse

• Ctrl+A -- Select the entire canvas.
• Ctrl+D -- Deselect (remove all selections).
• Ctrl+Shift+I -- Invert the selection (select everything that was not selected).

Feather

Soften the edges of a selection with a feather radius. Feathered edges create smooth transitions when painting, filling, or deleting within the selection.

1. Set the feather radius in the options bar before creating the selection, or
2. Go to Select → Feather after creating the selection.
3. Enter a pixel radius (e.g., 5px for a soft edge).

Marching Ants

Active selections are displayed with animated "marching ants" -- a dashed border that moves around the selection edges for visibility.

Keyboard Shortcuts