Selections, Magic Wand, and transforms
Rectangle and freehand selections
Section titled “Rectangle and freehand selections”Select part of your drawing, such as a character’s sleeve, to paint, fill or transform it while protecting nearby pixels. Use Rectangle for a rectangular area or Lasso to trace an irregular silhouette.
Press M, choose Rectangle or Lasso in the context bar, and drag on the canvas. Use the selection mode controls or these modifiers:
| Input | Selection mode |
|---|---|
| No modifier | Replace |
| Shift | Add |
| Alt | Subtract |
| Shift+Alt | Intersect |
Ctrl+A selects all; Ctrl+D deselects; Ctrl+Shift+D reselects; Ctrl+Shift+I inverts. Selecting alone does not modify the artwork. Switching tools keeps the selection. Painting, Fill and gradient respect it.
In Replace mode, drag inside the selection to move its border without moving pixels. Drag outside to create a new selection; click outside to deselect. A click inside preserves it. Add, Subtract and Intersect keep their selection gestures. Arrow keys move the border by one pixel; Shift+arrow moves it by ten. Press Escape during a border drag to restore its original position. Right-click the canvas for Deselect, Select All and transform commands.
Magic Wand
Section titled “Magic Wand”Press W and click a color. Tolerance (0–255) sets the allowed difference; zero matches exact RGBA colors, ignoring hidden RGB in fully transparent pixels. Contiguous selects the connected region; turning it off selects matching pixels throughout the image. Include diagonals connects diagonal neighbors and is available only with Contiguous enabled.
Visible layers samples the visible composite; turn it off to reference the active layer. The same Replace/Add/Subtract/Intersect modes apply. Clicking outside the image does nothing. Use the resulting selection with Fill or gradient.
Move and clipboard
Section titled “Move and clipboard”Choose the four-direction arrow in the tool rail, or press V. Select an unlocked, visible Pixels layer to move raster content. Use Ctrl+C, Ctrl+X and Ctrl+V to copy, cut and paste pixels. With Move active, arrow keys nudge pixels by one pixel; Shift+arrow nudges by ten. With Selection or Magic Wand and an active selection, Ctrl+arrow cuts and moves the selected pixels by one pixel; Ctrl+Shift+arrow moves them by ten. The vacated source becomes transparent; Ctrl+Z restores it. From Selection, Ctrl-drag temporarily moves pixels and Ctrl+Alt-drag copies them. Direct moves commit on release and preserve the selection. With Selection, Magic Wand or Move active, Delete or Backspace removes selected pixels. Selection and Magic Wand arrow keys move the border instead.
Preview the target layer
Section titled “Preview the target layer”Before dragging, Move outlines the targeted content and shows its layer name. Hovering does not select a layer or modify artwork. A locked or hidden target shows an explanation and remains protected.
Auto-Select is off at startup. Enable it in the Move context bar to pick the topmost visible Pixels layer with nontransparent artwork under the pointer. Click selects it; dragging selects and moves it. Empty space preserves the active layer. A locked target does not fall through to a layer underneath. The option is shared across documents for the current session.
An existing pixel selection takes priority on the active layer and temporarily disables Auto-Select. Move edits raster content; use Edit points for Paths.
Free Transform
Section titled “Free Transform”Try a different size or angle for a painted element without redrawing it. Inspect its contour before applying: resampling keeps colors crisp but may still require manual pixel corrections, especially after rotation.
Press Ctrl+T. Drag corners to scale, edges to resize one axis, or outside a corner to rotate. Shift locks proportions. Distort lets you move individual corners; flips and fixed rotations are in Edit > Transform or the canvas right-click menu.
If you start Free Transform from Selection, Selection stays active. It transforms selected pixels, or the active raster layer’s nontransparent content when no selection exists.
Choose Nearest Neighbor for direct pixel sampling or RotSprite for pixel-art contour resampling without blending new colors. The preview is always recomputed from the original pixels. Large transformations may be rejected if they exceed the editing memory budget.
Click Apply or press Enter to commit all pending changes as one edit. Click Cancel or press Escape to restore the original. Transformations target raster content; use Edit points for paths.
You can also commit by double-clicking inside the frame or single-clicking well outside it. The area immediately outside corners stays reserved for rotation. Right-click opens transform commands; Escape closes that menu first. Changing tools applies a valid pending transform. Panning or losing window focus preserves it. An invalid preview stays pending until corrected or cancelled.
Outline also respects selections: the selection clips the generated pixels while the full source silhouette determines its edges.