An Overview of GIMP 2.8 - Beginning Photo Retouching and Restoration Using GIMP - page 13

Figure 1-12. An example of a freehand selection and a selection by color range

Selections can be further refined with the Quick Mask function, which will be explored further later on.
You'll be able to edit selections with great precision, which is useful for isolating people to put on different
backgrounds or to recompose images. Refer to Table 1-1 below to become familiar with the name, shortcut,
and function of each tool.

Table 1-1. Tool Shortcuts and Functions

Icon Name Shortcut Tool Function

Rectangle R Selects rectangular or square areas

Ellipse E Selects elliptical or circular areas

Free Select F Draws free-form and polygonal selections

Fuzzy Select U Selects continuous areas of color

Select By Color Shift + O Selects areas of similar color

Intelligent Scissors I Selects shapes, using intelligent edge fitting

Foreground Select (none) Selects an area with foreground objects

The Brush Tools
The brush tools (brushes) in GIMP allow you to paint, repair flaws, and apply local exposure corrections,
among other things. Out of all of the brushes (for the purposes of retouching and restoration), the
“dynamic duo” of the set would be the Clone tool and the Healing tool. These are the two you'll most often
use to correct imperfections and repair damage on the images you edit (Figure 1-13 ).