Making Selections - Photoshop Elements 13: The Missing Manual - page 228

If you make a mistake, just press Esc. You can also press either Ctrl+D/ ⌘ -D to get rid
of all current selections or Ctrl+Z/ ⌘ -Z to remove the most recent one.
The items in the Tool Options area's Aspect drop-down menu give you three ways to control
the size of your selection: Normal lets you manually control it; Fixed Ratio lets you enter
proportions in the W (width) and H (height) boxes; and Fixed Size lets you enter specific di-
mensions in the W and H boxes. The Anti-aliasing checkbox is explained in the box on
Feathering and Anti-Aliasing .
Once you've made a selection, you can move it around in the photo by dragging it or using
the arrow keys on your keyboard to nudge it. And the Transform Selection command lets you
drag a selection larger or smaller, or change its shape; Resizing Selections tells you how.
UP TO SPEED: PASTE VS. PASTE INTO SELECTION
Newcomers to Elements are often confused by the fact that the program has two Paste commands,
Paste and Paste Into Selection. Knowing what each one does will help you avoid problems:
▪ Ninety-nine percent of the time, Paste is the one you want. This command simply places
your copied object wherever you paste it. Once you've pasted the object, you can move it by
moving the selected area.
▪ Paste Into Selection is a special command for pasting a selection into another selection.
Your pasted object appears only within the bounds of the selection you paste it into. When
you use this command, you can still move what you paste, but it won't be visible anywhere
outside the edges of the selection you pasted it into.
For example, say you want to put a beautiful mountain view outside a window: First, select
and copy the mountain (Ctrl+C/ ⌘ -C). Next, select the window, and then choose Edit→Paste
Into Selection to add the view. After that, you can maneuver the mountain photo around until
it's properly centered. But if you move it outside the boundary of your window selection, it
just disappears. And, once you deselect, your material is permanently in place; you can't
move it again.
If you understand layers (see Chapter 6 ), here's another way to think about the difference: Paste
creates a new layer, while Paste Into Selection puts what you paste on the existing layer.