Marquee Tools

Marquee tools are the easiest masking tools to use.  They allow you to create rectangular, elliptical and row/column masks. They are examples of hard masks. This means that all the pixels inside the mask have 100% opacity.

All of the marquee tools can be refined and modified as described in the introductory page of this module. 

Rectangular Marquee Tool

As the name suggests, this tool is used to make rectangular selections.

How to use it

  • Select the rectangular marquee tool from the toolbar on the left.
  • Click wherever you wish on your image and drag out a rectangle with the mouse.
  • Release the mouse button when you are happy with the selection you are creating.

If you press SHIFT while dragging, the rectangle will be constrained to a square.

Pressing ALT while dragging will draw a rectangle while maintaining the initial point clicked as the centre of the rectangle.

Pressing SHIFT ALT together  draws a square outwards from a central point.

What can it be used for?

It can be very useful in building a larger selection. For example if you are creating a selection of a sky, a good starting point is to select the majority of the sky using this tool. Because it creates a hard mask, it’s guaranteed to select all the pixels inside the rectangle. Other tools can then be used to complete your selection.

It can also be used to create a graduated filter. This is demonstrated below.

This is the original image. The rectangular marquee tool was used to create a selection of the foreground. A large feather was applied to give a smooth transition between the edited and unedited areas .

A Curves adjustment was made to lighten the foreground.

Elliptical Marquee Tool

This works in exactly the same way as the Rectangular Marquee tool but draws an ellipse or a circle.

What can it be used for?

It can also be used to create a radial filter. In the example below, an elliptical selection was used to create a simple vignette.

This is the original image. The elliptical marquee tool was used to create a selection in the centre of the image. A large feather was applied to give a smooth transition between the edited and unedited areas . The selection was then inverted so that the area outside the ellipse was selected.

A Hue/Saturation adjustment (with Lightness reduced) was made to create a vignette by darkening the outside of the image.

Row/Column Tools

These two tools will select a row or a column which is 1 pixel& high or wide. The selection will span the width or height of your image. I don’t find they are useful tools.