9: The Selection Menu 

The Selection menu contains commands that let you create, save, open, and manipulate selections and perform special effects like Drop Shadow and Extrude.

Select All

The Select All command [Command-A] makes the entire contents of a document the active selection. Double-clicking any selection tool also selects the entire document.

Select None

The Select None command [Command-D] turns off or deselects any current selection.

Invert Selection

The Invert Selection command lets you select everything except the currently selected region. This command is very helpful for selecting multi-colored items.

Grow Selection

The Grow Selection command expands the size of the current selection. Enter the size from 1 to 16 pixels in the Width and click the Grow button.

Shrink Selection

The Shrink Selection command reduces the size of the current selection. Enter the size from 1 to 16 pixels in the Width and click the Shrink button.

Select Similar

The Select Similar command selects all pixels in a document with the same color values as the active selection, whether they are contiguous (next to each other) or not.

Feather

The Feather command controls the blending between the active selection and the areas surrounding it. The greater the amount of feathering, the wider the area where the image blends into the background. Normal feathers half the width inside the selection edge and half outside. Inward and Outward types feather only on one side of the selection edge. Widths of 1 to 64 pixels may be entered.

Border

The Border command creates a feathered selection with the edge of the current selection as its center. In this mode, the selection is feathered both inside and outside half the number of pixels entered in the Width textbox.

Smooth Edges

The Smooth Edges command cleans up rough or jagged selections. It has three settings: Light, Medium, and Heavy which control the amount of smoothing.

Drop Shadow

The Drop Shadow command simplifies creating shadows for selections and type. The left portion of the dialog box gives a visual reference to the shadow's positioning that you may click and drag.

The Feather slider controls the softness of the shadow edge. Values are entered by moving the slider bar, clicking on the pointers at each end of the slider or entering a number of pixels in the textbox.

The Intensity slider controls the opacity of the shadow. Values are entered by moving the slider bar, clicking on the pointers at each end of the slider or entering a percent in the textbox.

The Offset area controls the positioning of the shadow in relation to the selection. Enter numbers in the Horiz (Horizontal) and Vert (Vertical) textboxes.

The Units pop-up lets you choose from pixels, inches, centimeters, picas, points or percent.

Extrude

The Extrude command simplifies creating 3D edges for selections and type. The left portion of the dialog box gives a visual reference to the extrusion's positioning

The Distance slider controls the depth of the extrusion. Values are entered by moving the slider bar, clicking on the pointers at each end of the slider or entering a number of pixels in the textbox.

The Direction buttons control the extrusion angle. Click the button that corresponds to the direction you wish.

The Operation radio buttons let you choose between filling the extrusion area with a solid color (such as the example above), or making the extrusion an active selection which can later be modified (see the example below).

 

Hide Marquee

The Hide Marquee command [Command-H] hides the moving dotted line showing the edges of a selection without deselecting.

 

Pick Up/Put Down Selection

This toggle command lets you pick up and move or place a selection while keeping it active.

 

Add to Web Image Map

This command adds the active selection to the Web image map for the document. For more information, see Chapter 4, The Web Image Map Palette and the section on creating web image maps in the Tutorial.

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