Additional selection options

Additional options can be found under the menu item “Select” in the menu bar.
I shall quickly run through these.

The first option, which is, “All” is selected to select everything in the picture.

The second option, “None”, will remove all selections in the picture.

 

The third option, “Invert”, has been already mentioned in the previous lesson.

The fourth option, “Float”, is used to put the selected pixels in a new layer, which we can edit. But before this let us talk about layers.

Below this, we have the option “By Color”. This allows us to do the color selection. This option is also found back in the toolbox.

The next option “From Path” is only available when working with the tool, “Path”, which we will discuss later.

And then we have the option, “Selection Editor”.
When we click this option, the “Selection” dialog is opened.
In the preview window all that is in white is displayed and selected.
Everything displayed in black is not selected.
At the bottom of the window we have a menu bar with buttons that can be found under the menu item, “Select”.

Under the “Selection Editor” we have the options “Feather” and “Sharpen”.
The first option, “Feather”, opens a dialog where you can soften the selected edge. The higher the number of pixels (picture elements), the smoother the transition from the selected area to the de-selected area.

An example makes this point clear:

The second option “Sharpen” is just the opposite.
So if I click “Sharpen” several times and then press the Delete key on my keyboard, a sharp edge will be selected, again.

The next two options in the list are “Shrink” and “Grow”.

Both options open a dialog where you can either Shrink or Enlarge the selected part.

 

The next option is the “Border” option.
What this does is, it selects one of the edges of the selection.
You can determine the width of this edge, as it appears in the dialog box .

The next option, “Rounded Rectangle”, does the same thing, and we have already seen this option in the options menu in the window and tools section in the previous lesson.

 

The next option, “Distort” will distort the selection.
When you click this option it opens a dialog where you can set the distortion level.
But you need some practice with these settings, so I cannot say for sure which one you should use.

 

The next option, “Toggle Quick Mask” puts you in the “Quick Mask” mode, and later in this course I will explain it in greater detail.

To quickly switch between normal mode and Quick Mask mode, we also have a button in the left corner of the image (1).

 

By clicking on the next option, “Save to channel” we can save the selection, and reuse it. But more on that later in this course.

 

And the last option is “To Path”. This option is also being discussed in one of the following lessons, when I talk about the tool path.

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