Basic Selection Tools
The Marquee, Lasso, Magic Wand, and Type Mask tools (Figure 2.8) are the essential ingredients in your selection toolkit, and they're the ones you'll be using the most in your everyday work. It's a good indication that you've come to master these tools when you find yourself trying to use them in other software programs where they don't exist. When using other programs, I sometimes find myself muttering, “Why can't I just lasso this thing?”
Figure 2.8. The basic selection tools.
The Marquee tool is the most basic of all the selection tools, and we'll cover it first. However, don't let this tool's simplicity fool you—it can perform a surprising number of tasks, so there's quite a bit to learn about it. If you hold your mouse button down while your cursor is over the Marquee tool icon, you'll get a variety of choices in a pop-up menu. We'll cover these choices one at a time, and I'll throw in some tricks along the way.