Marquee tools are used to select or mark out areas of an image. You can learn more about the various Photoshop Tools on our Adobe Photoshop Training courses, from beginner Photoshop training to advanced Photoshop Training in Brighton, Sussex.
The four Photoshop marquee tools are grouped together in the toolbar. To pick the one you want, click on the icon showing in the toolbar, and select the one you want from the pop-up menu.
- Holding shift when you drw a rectangle or ellipse will constrain the selection to a perfect square or circle.
- Holding down Alt as you drag a new selection, will allow you to draw outward from that point.
- Pressing the Shift key while a selection is already active will allow you to add more areas to the existing selection.
- Pressing Alt while a selection outline already exists will allow you to subtract areas from the existing selection.
To move a selection outline after you have completed it, make sure you have the New Selection option selected on the options bar. Then place the pointer inside the selection outline, and drag. You can also use the arrow keys on your keyboard to nudge the selection outline into place. To move the contents of a selection, use the move tool.
The keyboard shortcut for these tools is the letter M. Holding down the Shift key while pressing M will toggle between the rectangular and elliptical marquee tool.
