You get a *selection* when you add text, paste as selection, or by using one of the selection tools: SELECT (rectangular, square, circle or ellipse); FREEHAND (drawing it or using "point-to-point" or "smart edge"); and Magic Wand (matching color, hue or brightness values).

A *selection* is indicated on your image by a MARQUEE - those dancing (or marching) ants parading around the edge of the selected area. The MARQUEE can be turned off and on with Shift+Control+M (press all three together) or by choosing Hide or Unhide (depending) from the Selections menu. It should generally be turned on but sometimes, when you want to see how text looks for example, you can turn it off to check appearance and then turn it back on.

To the left is the Selection Tool Control Panel. The Selection Type is a dropdown list from which you can choose Square, Rectangle, Ellipse (Oval) or Circle Selection Shapes. Normally you would want this to be set on Rectangle.

The next choice is for *Feathering* which controls the sharpness of the selection edges. The number is the number of pixels in the feathering edge. Try increasing numbers on a selection to get a feel for this.

Feathering can be set at this point or you can select with 0 feathering and then modify your selection from Selections... Modify... Feather on the menubar or by using Control+H which gets you the feathering modification box at the right. The higher the number, the *softer* the feather.

The third setting on the Selection Control Panel is the Antialias check box. Checked it is ON, unchecked it is OFF. Antialias is similar to feathering but more precise, producing a smooth, unjagged edge.

The image at the left (from Lesson 2 Part 1) clearly shows the differences in the selection choices using feathering and/or antialias. Antialias must be chosen before making the selection but, as mentioned above, feathering can be added using Modify.

With Freehand and the Magic Wand, you not only have the Feather and Anitalias choices but also Sample Merged, an additional checkbox. This chooses whether to select from the single layer or from all the layers in an image.

FLOATING & DEFLOATING: A floating selection temporarily rests above an image or layer. It can be modified or moved without changing the underlying layer or image. A selection can be floated or defloated via choices on the Selection menu or buttons for it can be added to your toolbar in the Customize Toolbars choices.

ADDING to a Selection:
You can add to a selection in several ways. To add large areas (adjoining or not adjoining), hold down the shift key and outline additional areas. The image to the left is a circular selection added to a square one. This same shift key method works for all three selection tools (with the Magic Wand you click on the area to add rather than outline it).

If you need to enlarge a selection evenly all the way around, you can use Expand on the Selection... Modify menu, choosing the number of pixels (up to 100) by which you wish the selection to expand.

A selection can also be added to using the Grow command from the Selection... Modify menu. This adds to the selection based on the options set in the Magic Wand Control Panel. The Select Similar choice selects all areas in the image with the same colors that are in the current selection.

SUBTRACTING from a Selection:
The image to the right shows a circular selection subtracted from a square selection. Subtraction is done by using the Control key in cpmbination with any of the Selection tools instead of the Shift key.

Similar to the Expand choice on the Selection... Modify menu, the Contract choice will shrink a selection by a specified number of pixels.

One of the problems with moving a selection is the border of *trailing* pixels, especially when a selection is feathered or antialiased. When a selection is moved or pasted from a black or white background to a colored background, there are black and white pixels around the edges. Sometimes it is necessary to remove one or the other (black or white) or both.

There are three commands on the Selection menu that can sometimes clean up these trailing pixels. All three are found under Selections... Matting. Black Matte removes black pixels, White Matte removes white pixels and Defringe bleeds non-feathered pixels outward over the jaggies.