2. Creating and Using Selections
| Chapter 7. Painting with GIMP |

## 2. Creating and Using Selections

### 2.1. Moving a Selection

Rectangular and elliptical selections show up in two modes. Default mode is with handles. If you click the selection or press the Enter key, you only get the dotted outline (marching ants) and no handles. The other selection tools have different behaviour.

#### 2.1.1. Moving rectangular and elliptical selections

If you click-and drag a selection with handles, you move the selection outline and you don't move the contents of rectangular or elliptic selections.

You can also use the Move tool to move the selection outline.

Figure 7.5. Moving selection outline

You can also use Alt (or Ctrl+Alt on some systems) and the arrow keys to move the selection outline one by one pixel. With Shift+Alt and arrow keys you can move it by 25 pixels steps.

If you click-and-drag the selection without handles, you create a new selection! To move the selection contents, you have to

- hold down Ctrl+Alt keys and click-and-drag the selection. This makes the original place empty. A floating selection is created.

  Figure 7.6. Moving a selection and its content, emptying the original place

- hold down Shift+Alt keys and click-and-drag the selection to move without emptying the original place. A floating selection is created.

  Figure 7.7. Moving a selection and its content without emptying the original place

| Note
On some systems, it's preferable to push first the Alt key, otherwise if you push first the Shift or Ctrl keys, GIMP will fall over add/subtract to the current selection mode and after that, the Alt key is ineffective!

#### 2.1.2. Moving the other selections

The other selections (Lasso, Magic wand, By Color) have no handle. Click-and dragging them doesn't move them. To move their contents, as with rectangular and elliptical selections, you have to hold down Ctrl+Alt keys or Shift+Alt and click-and-drag.

If you use keyboard arrow keys instead of click-and-drag, you move the outline.

#### 2.1.3. Other method

| Note
You can also use a more roundabout method to move a selection. Make it floating. Then you can move its content, emptying the origin, by click-and-dragging or keyboard arrow keys. To move without emptying, use copy-paste.

Chapter 7. Painting with GIMP |  | 2.2. Adding or subtracting selections