The Marquee Selection Tools

To edit and apply special effects to portions of your pictures, remove unwanted objects, or cut out objects from one picture and put them on another, that portion or object should be selected using a selection tool or a combination of selection tools in Pixelmator.

The most basic selection tools in Pixelmator are the Rectangular Marquee, Elliptical Marquee, Column Marquee and Row Marquee Tools. Rectangular Marquee and Elliptical Marquee Tools in Pixelmator are perfect for making simple, but precise selections – such as regularly elliptically or rectangularly shaped objects. Column Marquee and Row Marquee Tools are great for selecting columns and rows.

Step 1

Open an image in Pixelmator, preferably one with oval or rectangular objects.

Step 2

Click to select any of the Marquee Tools in the Tools palette.

For smooth selection edges make sure Smooth Edges are selected before making a selection with the Elliptical Marquee Tool. For the jagged, but precise edges deselect Smooth Edges.

Step 3

Drag over an area to make a selection.

Step 4

Once a selection is made, the selection borders can be easily modified if necessary.

To modify the selection borders, choose one of the following selection modes in the Tool Options bar:

	New	Creates a new selection.
	Add To	Adds new selection to an existing selection.
	Subtract	Subtracts from an existing selection.
	Intersect	Subtracts the overlap of two selections.

And click and drag to add to, subtract from or intersect with the current selection borders.

The selection borders can be modified using any of the selection tools.

Step 5

After making a selection, any changes can be added to the selected region. For instance, selected area or object can be moved, rotated, scaled, flipped, duplicated, cut, filled, inverted, copied and pasted elsewhere. Also color adjustments and corrections, various special effects and filters can be applied to the selection.

Marquee Selection tools are quick, powerful yet easy-to-use while making simple, but precise selections.