Photoshop® CS4 Bible

2.5. Tools

You can use the tools in the tools panel to work directly on images. The Selection tools select pixels, the Brush tools paint on pixels with the foreground color, the Type tool typesets text, and so on. Most tools have hidden tools behind them, indicated by a small black triangle just below and to the right of the tool. Access hidden tools by clicking the mouse button on a tool and selecting the hidden tool. tool keyboard shortcuts are shown to the right of the tool name.

You can cycle through and select hidden tools by pressing a tool's keyboard shortcut multiple times. You must have Use Shift Key for Tool Switch unchecked in PreferencesGeneral Preferences for this to work. If this preference is checked, you will have to press Shift+tool shortcut key to cycle through the hidden tools.

Following are descriptions of the tools and other buttons in the Tools panel, along with the chapter references of where they are discussed in more detail.

2.5.1. Move tool

Any time you want to move image pixels (not selection borders alone), you need the Move tool, unless you want to nudge pixels a little at a time with the arrow keys. With the Move tool active, click the mouse button and drag the pixels to move them. If a selection is active, the Move tool moves only the selected pixels ...