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Stopping tools from having focus


SandpointGuy

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This is no doubt a newbie question, but my lack of determing the answer has stopped me from using what is obviously an excellent product: Once I use a tool to perform something, say to draw a colored line in an image, I dont know what to click on from stopping the drawing tool from having control. I can click on another tool, but what if I just want to drag the image to another part of the screen? In a previous paint tool I used, PhotoImpact I believe, there was an icon in the Tools that basically stopped whatever tool I had last selected from being in affect. I hope this makes sense, as it making me crazy. Thanks!

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but what if I just want to drag the image to another part of the screen?

Use the Move tool :MoveTool:

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Neither worked, perhaps I explained it wrong. I have a perfect example in front of me - I have a screen snapshow .gif and I wanted to use paint.net to draw an ellipses to highlight some areas. I drew it but it didnt come out quite where I wanted it. I dont know how to drag it, hitting Enter and trying to use the Move tool have no effect. So, not knowing how to move the ellipses, I undo-ed it and re-created it. Not optimal.

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Ah!

Well, you need to learn how to use layers.

Read this page: http://www.getpaint.net/doc/latest/WorkingWithLayers.html

Add a new layer.

Draw your elipse on the new layer.

If it is in the wrong place, select it with the selection tool and move it with the move selection tool.

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The "Selection" tool - where is that? I see a Lasso Select, Rectangle Select, Freeform Select, and an Ellipse Select, but not just a "Selection". Sorry to pester you, but all I want to do is drag up a simple ellipses a few pixels. Creating an overlay seems like overkill.

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The "Selection" tool - where is that? I see a Lasso Select, Rectangle Select, Freeform Select, and an Ellipse Select, but not just a "Selection".

All of those tools are selection tools. Pick one.

Sorry to pester you, but all I want to do is drag up a simple ellipses a few pixels. Creating an overlay seems like overkill.

It is not overkill. Creating a new layer is exactly how this type of thing is done.

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If you hover your mouse pointer over each one of the tools on your toolbar, it come up with a little label that tells you what it is. The Rectangle Select is a good one to use or you can use Ellipse Select. Best thing to do is to put each new ellipse on a new layer. This way you can move them & they can overlap without affecting each other.

You are not using an "overlay". If you put the ellipses on the same layer as the image you will move everything. You do not want this. Once you have everything how you want it you can either merge the layers down or use CTRL + SHIFT + F to flatten the layers down. If you save it as anything else other than a .PDN file, it will prompt you to flatten. You will also need to make a selection of the file type to save as otherwise it will save as a .PDN by default of you have layers in it.

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Currently you can't move a shape after you've drawn it. This is a limitation that may be improved in the next release, but you would only be able to edit the shape until you selected another action. One thing that may help is some of the tools support holding down right mouse button to move the shape while you are still holding down the left mouse button. I know the selection tools allow this, but off the top of my head I can't remember if the shape tools do.

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