When you use the marquee tools there are four different options you can choose from which can change the effect of the selection. The four options are listed below:

• New selection
• Add to selection
• Subtract from selection
• Intersect with selection

(The image shows the selection options in the order above.)


New selection

Most people only know about the new selection because it is the default selection. The new selection is where a new marquee is made every time you click and drag on your image. The old marquee disappears when you make a new selection.



Add to selection

The add selection option adds to the current selection instead of the removing the previous selection like in the new selection option. As you can see in the example below I have used the rectangular marquee tool to add more selected areas.



Subtract from selection

The subtract selection option removes areas of the selection. In the example below I have used the elliptical marquee tool which removed a small section from the selected area.




Intersect with selection

The intersect selection option creates a new selection from the intersected area of the selection. In the example below I have used the rectangular marquee tool to create two rectangles. Only the intersected area highlighted below will remain.

There are 4 marquee tools to choose from which are:

• Rectangular marquee tool
• Circular marquee tool
• Single row marquee tool
• Single column marquee tool

To select the different tools above you can either: click and hold down the marquee tool icon and wait for a drop down menu to appear. Or you can hold the Alt key and switch between the different marquee tools.



Below are explanations each of the marquee tools in detail:

1. Rectangular marquee tool

This tool is used to make rectangular selections in an image. You simply just click and drag a rectangle shape to the area of the image you wish.



2. Circular marquee tool

This tool is similar to the rectangular tool it makes circular selections in am image. You again click and drag a circular shape to the area of the image you want. You can create a perfect circle by holding down the Shift key while dragging a circular shape.



3. Single row marquee tool

This tool selects a single row of pixels in an image. When you use this tool you will notice only a single line selected like the example below. However, you can also add more rows of pixels by holding down the Shift key or by using the add selection mode which is discussed in Marquee tools part 2.



4. Single column marquee tool

This tool is exactly the same as the row marquee tool, but creates column rows of pixels instead. The same principles of applying more columns are the same as above.