PhotoPlus X2 User Guide - Serif

Manipulating Images 45
The Adjustable Selection Tools flyout provides different variable shapes,
including pie, star, arrow, heart, spiral, wave, and so on. Choose a tool, drag out a
shape on the image, then adjust the handles to fine-tune the shape. Double-click
within the shape to select the region.
Here’s how the adjustable
selection tools work. We’ll
use the regular polygon
selection shape as an
example. Choose a tool from
the flyout and drag out a
shape on the image. You can
hold down the Ctrl key to
constrain the shape (to a
circle or square).
The regular polygon appears as an outline with two slider tracks
bounding it. Each of the slider tracks has a square handle, and when you
move the cursor on to the handle it will change to a + sign. As you drag
the sliders, the shape’s properties change. In the case of the polygon, one
slider varies the number of sides, while the other rotates the shape. Once
you’re satisfied with the selection, double-click in the centre (just as with
the Crop Tool or Magnetic selection tool) to complete the marquee. The
shape will then possess a dashed outline.
The Colour Selection Tool lets you select a region based on the colour
similarity of adjacent pixels—simply click a starting pixel. It works much like the
fill tool, but the result is a selected region rather than a region flooded with a
colour.
The Context toolbar lets you set a tolerance value—how much of a
colour difference the tool looks for. With a low tolerance setting, the tool
"gives up easily" and only includes pixels very close in colour to the one
you click (a setting of 0 would select only pixels of the same colour; 255
would select all pixels). As the tolerance increases, so does the tool's
effect on pixels further in colour from the original pixel, so a larger
region is selected.