- the little, white, arrow-type symbols located in the bottom right hand corner of some of the icons of the tools indicate that the icon represents one tool out of a package of associated tools. To access the other tools, all you need to do is hold down on the icon for long enough until an options box pops up beside it.
- I'm not an absolute expert on all of these tools, but hopefully it'll be at least somewhat helpful to some of you.
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1. move tool
- used for resizing and moving images around the page
- involves stretching, and rotation
- also comes with an option of 'show transform controls,' which can be ticked or unticked
- transform controls are the boxes shown around the rectangle in the image above, and are necessary for resizing, rotating, etc. the layer. If a precise placement of the layer in a certain space is necessary, un-tick the 'show transform controls' box and you'll be able to see the movement of the layer a lot better.
- movement can also be facilitated by the arrow keys on the keyboard
- the circle in the middle = rotation point of image and is movable.
2. selection tool (rectangular marquee tool)
- used for selecting certain areas of a layer
- useful for painting/doing gradient/shading within a certain area, i.e 'colouring inside the lines,' because anything outside the selection ring will not be affected
- comes with an extension of: elliptical marquee tool, single row and single column marquee tools, which are different selection shapes.
3. polygonal lasso tool
- works in the same way as the selection tool, but is more useful for drawing geometric shapes to make more geometric art, somewhere in the style of cubism~
- accompanied by: lasso tool + magnetic lasso tool
- lasso tool is also a selection tool, in which you draw the selection yourself.
4. magic wand tool
- accompanied by quick selection tool
- selects according to colour, and therefore useful when cropping out solid, monotoned backgrounds. Should not be used for cutting out hair.
