Photoshop CS4: The Missing Manual

Appendix E. Photoshop’s Tools Panel

As explained in Chapter 1, the Tools panel is home to many of Photoshop’s most important implements. This appendix gives you a quick rundown of everything in this virtual toolbox and points you to where you can learn more about each tool.

Note

In this appendix, each tool’s keyboard shortcut is listed in parentheses after its name. (As you learned on Meet the Application Frame in Chapter 1, all the tools in a given toolset share the same keyboard shortcut.)

Move and Selection Tools

These are the tools you use to tell Photoshop what part of an image you want to edit. Once you’ve created a selection, you can move those pixels to another spot, change their color, apply a filter to them, and so on. The selection tools are covered in detail in Chapter 4.

• The Move tool (V) is the black arrow at the top of the Tools panel (see Figure E-1, left). You can use it to grab and move a selection (Chapter 4), whole layers (Chapter 3), and guides (Creating a New Document in Chapter 2).

• The Marquee tools (M) are nestled just below the Move tool; they include the Rectangular, Elliptical, Single Column, and Single Row Marquees. You’ll use the Rectangular Marquee the most as it’s great for selecting square and rectangular areas. To use any of the Marquee tools, just drag diagonally and Photoshop marks your selection with an army of marching ants (Selection Basics in Chapter 4).

  Figure E-1. Left: The Move tool perches at the very top of the Tools panel, followed by the Marquee ...