This tutorial will cover the tools on the toolbar that can be used to create selections. The selection tools on the toolbar all have several common concepts. They are as follows: Antialias The Selection and Freehand Selection tools both allow you to set Antialias. Setting Antialias on will smooth the edges of your selection so that the edges. This will make the edges of your selection smoother. Feather The Selection and Freehand Selection, and Magic Wand tools both allow you to set a feather. Feathering fades the edges around a selection, creating a smoother transition. The feathering value you enter is the width of the transition. When you set Antialias or Feathering in one selection tool, it applies then to all the selection tools. If you forget to turn off Antialias or Feathering, the next time you use a different selection tool, the values you enter in the previous tools will be active. This can lead to unexpected results. I always turn off Antialis when I an done using a Selection tool. I never set Feathering in the tool since you can feather a selection from the Selections>Modify>Feather menu option. Adding to a Selection You can add to a selection by holding down the Shift key while making another selection that crosses the currently active selection. The example below illustrates adding to a square selection. Subtracting from a Selection You can subtract from a selection by holding down the Control while making another selection that crosses the currently active selection. The graphic below illustrates subtracting from a square selection. Moving a Selection There are several ways you can move a selection: You can move a currently active selection by clicking on the Mover tool and then right-click and drag the selection. This operation moves only the selection. To move the selection itself, left click and drag or hold down the Shift key and press one of the Arrow keys to move the selection one pixel in the direction the arrow key is pointing. This will move the selection and fill the background with the currently selected background color. On a transparent layer, the area behind the moved selection will remain transparent. To move a copy of the selection, leaving the original selected area behind, choose Selections>Float and move the "floating" selection. Or... Choose Selections>Promote to Layer and move the promoted selection on the new transparent layer by left-clicking and dragging. Selection Tool The Selection tool is used to make selections in a preset shape on a graphic. The Selection Tool Options palette contains a drop down list of numerous preset shapes for selections as illustrated below. When you enter a value in the "Feather" box, you will feather the edges of the selection by the number of pixels entered. When you activate Antialias, your selections will be antialiased. A rule of thumb for antialiasing selections is to antialias any selections that contain curves and do not antialias selections that contain straight lines. Antialiasing straight line selections will result in the edges of the selection looking blurred. "When I make a selection from a graphic, why does it end up with a "halo" of color around the edges?" Because you had "antialias" checked when you made your selection! Select Area Double click on the Selection tool and the following dialog box pops up. This option is very handy when you are cropping numerous graphics to the same size. You set your crop size by entering the appropriate coordinates. When you hit OK, your selection will be active on the currently active graphic. Paint Shop Pro will retain the coordinates you enter until the next time you change them. So, if you have 100 photographs you need to crop to 4" x 5", this is how you will do it, quick and easy! Other than manually entering the coordinates for the selection, the other options on this dialog box are: Custom Size and Position - This is the active selection mode to manually enter coordinates. Surround Current Selection - This option will enter the coordinates of the current selection in the coordinate boxes. Select Opaque Area - current layer - Select Opaque Area - merged - Creating Selections Following are ways to create a selection with this tool: Rectangular, square, or rounded rectangular or square selections - place the cursor at the upper left corner of the area you want to select. Circular or elliptical selections - place the cursor at the center of the area you want to select. Shape selections - place the cursor at the upper left corner point that would form the corner of an imaginary rectangle enclosing the shape. Click the left mouse button and drag in the direction you want to create a selection. Release the mouse button when your selection is complete. The area surrounding the selection will become a marquee (sometimes referred to as "marching ants"). If you don't see a marquee when your selection is complete, check Selections>Hide Marquee and make sure it is not activated. Freehand Tool Freehand selections can be very useful when you need to extract an object from a busy background. Selection Types Freehand - The Freehand tool allows you to drag the mouse around an area you want to select. When you release the mouse, the program will connect the start and end point. I rarely use the Freehand option on this tool since it gives you very little control over your selections. Point to Point - The Point to Point option gives you much more control. All you do is to click on an image, and continue clicking. When you reach the starting point and double click, the selection will be complete. When you are making an intricate selection, you will find that zooming in on the graphic will allow you to make a much more accurate selection. Smart Edge - Smart Edge allows for a very accurate selection if there is a lot of contrast between the background and the object you wish to select. Smart Edge works a lot like Point to Point, but the selection area between the two points where you click "snap" to the edge of what you are selecting. Magic Wand The Magic Wand tool is used to select pixels of color in a graphic. Match Mode The Match Mode determines the value on which a selection will be based. These modes are: RGB - Selects pixels based on the amount of red, green and blue they contain. Hue - Selects pixels based on the hue's position on the color wheel. Brightness - Selects pixels based on the amount of white they contain. All Opaque - Selects all pixels of color (does not select transparent areas). Opacity - Selects pixels based on the opacity level of the pixels selected versus the opacity level of surrounding pixels. Tolerance The Tolerance level determines the amount of similar colored pixels that will be selected. A Tolerance level of 200 will result in all pixels of color in a graphic being selected. The following graphics represent, on the left a tolerance setting of 10 and on the right a tolerance setting of 50 with the blue in the sky as the selection point.     Feathering Feathering controls how sharp the edges of the selection will be. When you are selecting a background to remove from a graphic, setting a value in feathering will result in less "jaggie" artifacts being left behind. The following graphic demonstrates selecting and removing the white background with no feathering (middle graphic) and feathering set to 2 (right graphic). I first made the selection then hit delete to remove the background. With feathering set, you will probably need to hit delete more than once to remove the fuzzy border. I hit delete three times on the graphic with feathering set. Sample Merged When Sample Merged is checked, the Magic Wand tool will select pixels of colors from the underlying layers in addition to the currently selected layer. Eye Dropper Tool The Eye Dropper tool is used to pick up a color from a graphic. Left clicking sets the Foreground color and right clicking sets the background color.