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For more details on the various selection operations that can be performed, see the selections section.
Rectangular Marquee
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Keyboard shortcut: M
Double-click shortcut: The whole icon is selected.
Modifiers: Before the mouse is clicked, shift turns on additive mode while option turns on subtractive mode. After it is clicked, option causes the initial point to be used as the center of the rectangle. Shift constrains the drawing of the rectangle to a 1:1 aspect ratio. The space bar temporarily puts the tool into panning mode.
Description: The rectangular marquee tool is used to make rectangular selections with one of the corners at the starting point (the place where the mouse was first pressed) and the ending point (the place where the mouse was let go of).
Move
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Keyboard shortcut: V
Modifiers: Option causes a copy to be left behind at the original location. Shift constrains the movement to 45° intervals. The space bar temporarily puts the tool into panning mode.
Description: The move tool is used to displace selections. It causes a selection to be floated (if it isn't already) and make it glide over the rest of the contents of the drawing. Also note that the selection can be moved around in one pixel increments (or 10 if the shift key is held down) by using the arrow keys.
Lasso
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Keyboard shortcut: L
Double-click shortcut: The polygonal lasso mode is enabled.
Modifiers: Before the mouse is clicked, shift turns on additive mode while option turns on subtractive mode. After the mouse is clicked, option toggles polygonal mode on. The space bar temporarily puts the tool into panning mode.
Description: The lasso tool is used to draw an irregular selection shape which then "tightens" around the contents. The tightening is done by looking at which pixels match the background color, and then "going through" those pixels.
Magic Wand
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Keyboard shortcut: W
Modifiers: Before the mouse is clicked, shift turns on additive mode while option turns on subtractive mode. The space bar temporarily puts the tool into panning mode.
Description: : The magic wand is used to select areas of the same color. When you click on a pixel, all adjacent pixels which have the same color will be selected.