Moving a Selected Area in Adobe Photoshop CS5
Note: This excerpt does not include the lesson files. The lesson files are available with purchase of the book.
From the book
From the book
From the book
Once you’ve made a selection, any changes you make apply exclusively to the pixels within the selection. The rest of the image is not affected by those changes.
To move the selected area to another part of the composition, you use the Move tool. This image has only one layer, so the pixels you move will replace the pixels beneath them. This change is not permanent until you deselect the moved pixels, so you can try different locations for the selection you’re moving before you make a commitment.
- If the sand dollar is not still selected, repeat the previous exercise to select it.
- Zoom out so you can see both the wooden plate and the sand dollar.
- Select the Move tool (
). Notice that the sand dollar remains selected.
- Drag the selected area (the sand dollar) to the left area of the collage so that the sand dollar overlaps the lower-left edge of the wooden plate.
- Choose Select > Deselect, and then choose File > Save.
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In Photoshop, it’s not easy to lose a selection. Unless a selection tool is active, clicking elsewhere in the image will not deselect the active area. To deliberately deselect a selection, you can choose Select > Deselect, press Ctrl+D (Windows) or Command+D (Mac OS), or click outside the selection with any selection tool to start a different selection.
Tool tips from the Photoshop evangelist
Julieanne Kost is an official Adobe Photoshop evangelist.
Move tool tip
If you’re moving objects in a multilayer file with the Move tool and you suddenly need to select one of the layers, try this: With the Move tool selected, move the pointer over any area of an image and right-click (Windows) or Control-click (Mac OS). The layers that are under the pointer appear in the context menu. Choose the one you’d like to make active.