Tools
Selection
Constrain edits to a region with rectangular, elliptical or freehand selections.
Selection
Selections constrain painting, filling and filters to a region of the canvas.
Shapes
- Rectangular - drag a box.
- Elliptical - drag an ellipse.
- Freehand - draw an arbitrary outline.
Hold Shift to add to the selection, Alt to subtract, both to intersect.
With nothing selected yet, Shift constrains the drag to a square or circle.
Mask editing
Paint the selection instead of drawing a shape. Size is shared with the Brush; Strength follows pen pressure and builds up while you hold the brush in place.
- Marquee - drag the shape above. Shows the shape it will draw.
- Add - paint selection in.
- Erase - paint selection out.
- Blur - soften the mask under the brush.
Mask Preview
Tints the canvas by coverage - blue barely selected, red fully selected, unselected left clear.
Outline marks the >0% line, so a feathered or half-erased selection
looks identical to a hard one. Mask Preview is how you see the difference.
Working with a selection
While a selection is active, every edit is clipped to it. Selections pair well with masks and adjustment layers - see Layers & Compositing - and can be turned into a layer mask to make the clip permanent and re-editable.