selection tools request

[bluejewel24]

hello. i would like to ask for a program feature to be added or for a plug in for some selection tools.

1 - i could really use an "expand selection" and "contract selection". with a way to select how many pixels to expand or contract by. for me anyways, this would mainly be used with the magic wand, but would also be useful for any other selection formats.

2 - i need a way to rotate a selection itself. rotating in either direction would be nice to. as it is i have to rotate and pan a whole layer to do what i need now.

3 - im not sure what to call this one lol, "shrink selection area" maybe, but i need a way to select a single item thats sitting in a layer with other items and a lot of empty space.

example: say you have a cutout of a dog and a cutout of a cat on an otherwise empty layer, and you want to select only the dog, and not the cat or any of the transparent area around them.

i used to use paint shop pro years ago, and in that program you could use the rectangle selection tool to broadly select things like this, then click on the used pixels inside the selection area, and the selection would shrink down around that item only.

4 - it would be very nice if there was a "promote selection to new layer" feature. it would save a lot of time, as now you have to cut the selection, make a new layer, and paste it into the new layer.

thank you very much

[Lance McKnight]

hello. i would like to ask for a program feature to be added or for a plug in for some selection tools.

1 - i could really use an "expand selection" and "contract selection". with a way to select how many pixels to expand or contract by. for me anyways, this would mainly be used with the magic wand, but would also be useful for any other selection formats.

2 - i need a way to rotate a selection itself. rotating in either direction would be nice to. as it is i have to rotate and pan a whole layer to do what i need now.

3 - im not sure what to call this one lol, "shrink selection area" maybe, but i need a way to select a single item thats sitting in a layer with other items and a lot of empty space.

example: say you have a cutout of a dog and a cutout of a cat on an otherwise empty layer, and you want to select only the dog, and not the cat or any of the transparent area around them.

i used to use paint shop pro years ago, and in that program you could use the rectangle selection tool to broadly select things like this, then click on the used pixels inside the selection area, and the selection would shrink down around that item only.

4 - it would be very nice if there was a "promote selection to new layer" feature. it would save a lot of time, as now you have to cut the selection, make a new layer, and paste it into the new layer.

thank you very much

1 - There was a workaround offered by an artist. I think if you used BoltBait's feather's tool (the selection feather one) it would work in theory.

2- Either rectangle or ellipse select your layer, and use the move tool. When the nubs appear, right-click on one of the handle, and drag it. It would rotate the selection. Holding down the shift key would rotate in 15 degree increments.

3 - dpy has a plug-in that will shrink the selection slightly and it's called AA Assistant. Look in his plug-in pack.

4- If you had bothered to look at the Edit menu, you'd see there's a command to paste info into new layer or learn the keyboard shortcut key CTRL+ALT+V.

Edited February 21, 2012 by Lance McKnight

[bluejewel24]

1 - There was a workaround offered by an artist. I think if you used BoltBait's feather's tool (the selection feather one) it would work in theory.

2- Either rectangle or ellipse select your layer, and use the move tool. When the nubs appear, right-click on one of the handle, and drag it. It would rotate the selection. Holding down the shift key would rotate in 15 degree increments.

3 - dpy has a plug-in that will shrink the selection slightly and it's called AA Assistant. Look in his plug-in pack.

4- If you had bothered to look at the Edit menu, you'd see there's a command to paste info into new layer or learn the keyboard shortcut key CTRL+ALT+V.

thank you very much for your help lance! i will try the 2 plug in workarounds you mentioned for 1 and 3. and thanks bunchs for how to rotate a selection!! i tried a bunch of mouse/keyboard combos the other night when i was trying to do it, but i hadnt hit on that combo yet lol. as for your info on #4... eesshhh ok im an idiot lol, i somehow missed the paste info into new layer item in the edit menu the other night. :s i dont have much time to play with my art junk anymore, and i forget half the stuff i learned in the meantime it seems.

(what i was picturing for my "promote selection to new layer " feature was a right click command, as thats what i was used to in paint shop pro. sorry i didnt specify that.)

your CTRL+ALT+V trick is a nice one and will be very useful, but it pastes the selection into a new image entirely, not into a new layer on the same image.

Edited February 21, 2012 by bluejewel24

[BoltBait]

Ctrl-shift-V is paste to new layer in the same file.

[Lance McKnight]

thank you very much for your help lance! i will try the 2 plug in workarounds you mentioned for 1 and 3. and thanks bunchs for how to rotate a selection!! i tried a bunch of mouse/keyboard combos the other night when i was trying to do it, but i hadnt hit on that combo yet lol. as for your info on #4... eesshhh ok im an idiot lol, i somehow missed the paste info into new layer item in the edit menu the other night. :s i dont have much time to play with my art junk anymore, and i forget half the stuff i learned in the meantime it seems.

(what i was picturing for my "promote selection to new layer " feature was a right click command, as thats what i was used to in paint shop pro. sorry i didnt specify that.)

your CTRL+ALT+V trick is a nice one and will be very useful, but it pastes the selection into a new image entirely, not into a new layer on the same image.

I had learned the same thing you did when I started out. That's why I passed on what I learned. Also, when you click on the Help menu, it'll take you to a Help section of the PDN website. That section have plently of useful information, including keyboard shortcut keys to master. By the way, the only right-click thing available in PDN is rotating selection, and that's it. I'm not sure if Rick is planning more right-clicking feature, I'll have to look around, but off the top of my head, that's the only right-click thing.

Best of luck in PDNing!

Edited February 21, 2012 by Lance McKnight

[bluejewel24]

thank you very much for the help boltbait and lance!!

yes i noticed the lack of right click features to lol. paintshop pro used a lot of those so i got used to doing things that way. i hope they add in more right click things in the future.

and ill surely be going to the help page to learn more of the keyboard shortcuts!

now i guess i better go start the long task on the plug in forum, of trying to figure out what the plug ins all do and what all i need to get again. i havnt been over there in a couple years and im sooo behind lol. :\