Making rectangular or elliptical selections with the marquee tools

The marquee tools draw rectangular and elliptical selection borders.

To use the marquee tools:

1. Select a marquee tool in the toolbar:
• Rectangular marquee to make a rectangular selection.
• Elliptical marquee to make an elliptical selection.
2. In the options bar, specify whether to create a new selection , add to a selection , subtract from a selection , or select an area intersected by other selections .
3. To soften the selection border so that it blends into the area outside the selection, enter a Feather value in the options bar. (For more information on feathering selections, see Softening the edges of a selection.)
4. If you chose the elliptical marquee, you can select Anti-aliased in the options bar to smooth the edges of your selection. (For more information on anti-aliasing, see Softening the edges of a selection.)
5. In the options bar, choose an option from the Style pop-up menu:
• Normal to visually set the size and proportions of the selection border.

When making a Normal selection, you can press the Shift key as you drag to constrain the selection to a square or circle.

• Fixed Aspect Ratio to set a width-to-height ratio for the selection border. Enter values (decimal values can be used) for the aspect ratio. For example, to draw a marquee twice as wide as it is high, enter 2 for the width and 1 for the height.
• Fixed Size to specify values for the marquee's height and width in inches, centimeters, or pixels. If you use pixel measurements, enter values in whole numbers, and keep in mind that the number of pixels in one inch depends on the resolution of the image. (See About image size and resolution.)
6. Do one of the following:
• To make a Normal or Fixed Aspect Ratio selection, drag over the area you want to select.
• To make a Fixed Size selection, click in the image to set the upper left corner of the selection border.

By default, a selection border is created from one of its corners. To create a marquee from its center, press Alt (Windows) or Option (Mac OS) while making the selection.

To reposition a marquee tool selection while dragging to define the selected area, hold down the spacebar, and drag.