| |||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
Adobe Photoshop Marquee Tools
With the marquee tools you can create simple geometric selections in your images. Once the selection is made,
you can move the selection by dragging it or using the arrow keys on the keyboard. As long as the marquee tool is
selected, the movement will not affect the image. If the tool is not selected however, the part of the image inside the selection will move leaving a white area where the selection was first made.
Pressing the letter M will select the tools in this tool set. Pressing Shift + M will cycle through the available tools. ![Rectangular Marquee Tool [M]](files/rectangular_marquee_tool.gif)
The rectangular marquee tool will allow you to make selections in the shape of a square or rectangle.
![Elliptical Marquee Tool [M]](files/eliptical_marquee_tool.gif)
The elliptical marquee tool will allow you to make round or oval shaped selections in your image.
 The single row marquee tool is used to make
a single pixel selection that is the width of your image.
The single column marquee tool is used to make a single pixel selection that is the height of your image.
The single row and single column buttons are rarely used and therefore have no key commands associated with them. Clicking on one of the marquee tools, or any other tool in the tool palette, will place an options bar across the top of the screen just below the file menu.  From left to right, the first shows the marquee tool that is in use. Also by clicking the arrow it will allow you to add tool presets for that tool. The next section lets you choose how the selection interacts with other selections. The first icon is the default setting for the marquee tool. It will allow you to draw one selection. The second icon allows you to draw a selection anywhere on the image and then draw another selection in another place on the image while keeping the first selection active. Making your first selection and then holding down the Shift key to make your second selection can also accomplish this. If both selections intersect at some point, they will be made into one selection in the shape of both selections. The third icon is used to eliminate part of a selection. With a selection active, draw a selection that intersects the active selection. Any area within the second selection will be removed from the first selection. This can also be accomplished by holding down the Alt key while making the second selection. The fourth icon is used to make a selection of the common area of two or more active selections. This can also be accomplished by holding down the Alt + Shift keys while making your final selection. The feather dialog box will allow you to set the amount of feathering the selection will make. Feathering blurs edges of the selection by building a transition boundary between the selection and its surrounding pixels. This blurring can cause some loss of detail at the edge of the selection. Next is an option to set anti-aliasing on or off. Anti-aliasing smooths the jagged edges of a selection by softening the color transition between edge pixels and background pixels. Since only the edge pixels change, no detail is lost. Anti-aliasing is useful when cutting, copying, and pasting selections to create composite images. Next is the style option. With this option, you have 3 different choices. Normal will allow you to draw your selection to any size or proportion you desire. Constrained aspect ratio will allow you to enter a height and width for the selection to constrain to. This means that as you drag your selection it will keep the width and height ratio specified. The fixed size option will open the width and height input boxes on the right side of the options bar. These boxes allow you to choose the exact height and width of your selection. Then by clicking on the image it will place the selection on the on the image at the specified size. The marquee selection tools can be snapped to a grid, guides, slices, or document bounds. Click on View then Snap To from the main file menu and choose what you want the selection to align with. Then when you draw the selection, it will automatically snap to the guides, etc... that you specify. Selections are of great use in Adobe Photoshop as they allow you to isolate parts of an image. Only the parts of the image inside the selection box can be edited. Anything outside of the selection will not be affected by any changes made to the selection. It is kind of like not being able to draw outside of the lines. Where was this option in my box of Crayolas? Next...The Move Tool
|
|||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
