rotate tool

[Crazy Man Dan]

Sometimes I want to rotate only a part of a sketch but when I try, it rotates everything. Even when I have used the select an area option.

When you have selected the portion of the image you want to rotate, switch to the "Move" tool. You'll see the selection tint clear and handles appear around the selection boundary. Then, right-click anywhere on the canvas and drag to rotate only the selected area.

Secondly, when I use the rubber it leaves annoying chequered pattern behind and I just want it to be blank again.

The Eraser tool sets the pixels behind it to 0% Alpha (completely transparent). The checkered background is just an inner-application representation that that area is transparent, and it is saved as white in a format that doesn't support transparenct or as areas of transparency in .gif or .png.

If you want to see a solid color behind your erased areas instead of the checkered background, create a new layer and move it to the very top of the layer stack (it'll be the lowest layer, behind all the others) and fill it with the color you want to see in the areas you erase.

[Crazy Man Dan]

Make sure that you distinguish between the "Move Selected Pixels" and "Move Selection" tools

Good catch! I forget about the addition of the Move Selection tool sometimes, but it really is a Godsend.

But yes, you'll want the "Move Selected Pixels" tool to affect the image underneath your selection.

[Rick Brewster]

(Oops, that post was by me, I wasn't logged in for some reason)