Image Editor Reference - Selections

Selections

Nearly all operations in the Image Editor are performed on the current selection. The selection defines which pixels in the image will be affected by painting, filtering, cut and paste and so on. You can think of it as being a separate, hidden, layer in the image where the opaque parts of the layer represent fully-selected and transparent parts represent unselected. Pixels can also be partially-selected.

Selection is indicated by the standard "marching ants" outline in the editor. Note that as a convenience, for many purposes, if none of the image is selected, the editor will take this as meaning that you want to apply an operation to the whole image.

The Selection Menu

The Selection menu contains a number of commands for manipulating the selection:

  • Select All - Select the whole image
  • Select None - Deselect the whole image
  • Invert Selection - Inverts the selection. i.e. selects the unselected parts and vice versa.
  • Feather - Blurs the edges of the selection.
  • From Layer Transparency - Makes a selection based on the transparency of the selected layer. This allows you to save selections to the layer list and restore them again.