Lecture: Tools Overview

The Move Tool (v)

The move tool allows you to move a selection or entire layer by dragging it with your mouse or using your keyboard arrows keys.

The move tool is located at the top of the Photoshop Toolbox.

When the move tool is selected, click and drag anywhere in the image. By default, if an area is selected the selection will be moved, otherwise the whole layer will be moved. See the options bar for more options.

Alternatively, use your arrow keys to move the selection or layer in small increments. Hold down the Shift key to move in larger increments.

Note: You can activate the move tool when another tool is selected by holding down the Ctrl key (Windows) or Command key (Mac OS).

The Marquee Tool (v)

The Marquee tool is the most basic of selection tools and often the one most useful. This tool is used to draw selections based on geometric shapes. Specifically, the marquee tool allows you to draw rectangular and elliptical selections. To form the selection, simply click and drag the mouse.

You can easily choose the geometrical form by changing the value for SHAPE in the options palette.

Notice that there are two special cases of rectangle in which you are constrained to a single row of pixels or a single column of pixels.

Note that a square is a special case of rectangle and a circle is a special case of ellipse. To get a square from a rectangular marquee or a circle from an elliptical marquee, simply press and hold the SHIFT key while you drag out your selection.

An often-desired function is the ability to draw a rectangular or elliptical shape. To do this, simply use the selection tool to define the outline of your shape and then use the EDIT --> FILL or EDIT --> STROKE menu item to either fill or outline the shape.

As you are dragging out your selections, you should notice that selections are drawn outwards from the point at which you initially clicked on the canvas. Sometimes, this can be disconcerting, especially if you are trying to select a circular area around some base point. Fortunately, Photoshop has an answer. To draw the selection out from the center, press and hold the ALT key while dragging out the selection.

Of course, to anti-alias your selection, you can use the anti-alias checkbox or the feather checkbox or both. The feathering checkbox simply affords an extra degree of anti-aliasing.

The Lasso Tool (L)

The marquee tool is certainly cool and when you use the SHIFT and ALT keys to add or subtract from the selection, you can create some pretty complex selections. However, often times, a free form selection tool is what you really want. A freeform tool like the Lasso, allows you to draw out a selection area much like you were tracing over an image through tracing paper.

To create a free form selection, simply choose the lasso tool and click and drag on the canvas. The selection will follow your drag.

Obviously, it is unlikely that you will succeed in making a free form selection right the first time since it is very easy for your mouse to slip. Fortunately, you can use the SHIFT and ALT keys to add or subtract from a selection as well as use the ALT key down while you drag with the lasso to create polygons much like you would do to create lines using one of the paint tools as discussed yesterday.

Note that if you do not perfectly align up the beginning and the ending of a lasso selection, Photoshop will complete it for you by drawing a line from the end to the beginning as the crow flies.

Although fundamentally similar – each of these three tools helps you create selections – they differ broadly in function:

• Lasso Tool: Used to make freehand selections with zero assistance from Photoshop. Since freehand selections tend to be quite imprecise, you will hardly ever need to use this, except for making very rough selections.
• Polygonal Lasso Tool: Draws polygonal, i.e. angular selections. Very useful for selecting shapes with straight edges.

Magnetic Lasso Tool: An edge selection tool that detects an image’s edges and automatically selects the pixels around them. Selections are freehand, but with assistance from Photoshop. This gives it a high degree of precision, particularly if there is some contrast between image and the background. You can think of it as a mix between the Pen tool and the Quick Selection tool.