Photoshop Marquee Tool

Marquee tool (shortcut M) is used to select certain area in an image, and this can be done in 4 different ways as provided by Adobe Photoshop. When an area is selected, you can see something like marching ants around it. I'll use this phrase "marching ants" in this blog frequently. At any instant, if you're done with selection work and want to remove the marching ants, just press Ctrl+D (Deselect) on your keyboard.

Rectangular Marquee:
This is selected initially as default. Click anywhere on the image and drag towards any direction. When you release the mouse the dragged rectangular area is selected. Note: To select a perfect square, hold down shift key and then drag, this will come in handy in elliptical marquee tool as well.

Elliptical Marquee:
Do what you did with rectangular marquee. This will select an elliptical area, when pressed shift key then a perfect circle will be selected.


Single Row Marquee:
This is used to make a horizontal selection of single pixel. In other words, it is used to select a thin horizontal area in the picture. (where thin = 1 pixel)

Single Column Marquee:
This is used to make a vertical selection of 1 pixel just like in the Single Row Tool.

These select tools can be used in various ways.

The above is the options box when one of the marquee tool is selected. Look at the selected box on the left section. Move the mouse over there, it says "New Selection" which we've discussed so far regarding Marquee (select) tools. The other three options, "Add to selection" "Subtract from selection" and "Intresect with selection" help us to select precisely.

For example, "Add to selection" can be used to select another area in the image with some area already selected. Look at the images below:

We first select a rectangle as shown in the pic. Now if we have to select another rectangular area on the pic, we chose the "Add to selection" box in the options pane. The shortcut to this is just press shift key while selecting the new area and note the small ' + ' sign while you drag. That indicates "Add to selection".

We can also add an elliptical selection area as shown below, just press shift while dragging.

The "Add to selection" tool can also be used to append a selection to an already selected area. Try dragging a circle intersecting a rectangle and see the result.

The "Subtract from selection" tool is similar. It is used to remove certain selection area from an already selected area. This will explain better:

This time we drag a rectangle intersecting another rectangle and ellipse. Note the small ' - ' sign which indicates "Subtract from selection". The shortcut to this is pressing Alt key while you drag. The result is shown below:

In similar fashion, you can try "Intresect from selection" tool. To use Subtract and Intersect tools we must have some area already selected to subtract/intersect from them.

Note: When you're done with selection, to remove the marching ants just press Ctrl+D.

Moving the Selection:

When you select an area, the selection can be moved to fit according to your requirement. Make sure that "New selection" is selected in the options pane. Drag a rectangle or any other marquee tool, when you release the mouse, the area is selected, move the mouse to the selected area and a "move" cursor appears which is used to "click and move" the rectangular selection. Notice that while moving the selection, the move cursor turns black.

Say if you want to move a selection when still pressing the drag button. Lets say if you need to select an eye ball in an image, where do you start to drag? It's a bit of a problem. Do one thing, drag the circle (decide the size while dragging, press shift if required) and when you need to move the circle, press space bar without releasing the drag (left mouse) button. This trick was suggested to me by my old friend Daniel.

Get your hand busy around these Marquee tools and options. These are like alphabets of English language. And try to remember the shortcuts, that'll help you save your time while you work.