The Selection Menu
You might have noticed that, in addition to the Selection tools you have just learned about, there's also a Select menu, shown in Figure 3.8. Probably the most useful commands on the menu are the top four. Select All simply draws a selection marquee around the entire canvas. Deselect removes the selection marquee from the image. Reselect replaces the marquee if you have accidentally deselected something. Inverse lets you select everything but one object by selecting the object and then inverting. For instance, if I had a photo of a lemon on a plate, I could select the lemon and then choose Inverse to select the plate. Inverting is extremely useful, and you'll soon discover that it's one of your favorite commands.
Figure 3.8. The Select menu and Modify submenu.

Feather
Feather lets you make selections with fuzzy, feathered edges rather than hard ones. It's very helpful when you want to select an object from one picture and paste it into another because it adds a slight blur that helps the object to blend in. You can use the Feather Selection dialog box, shown in Figure 3.9, to determine how many pixel widths of feathering to apply. Experiment with feathering selections to find out what works best.
Figure 3.9. The Feather Selection dialog box.

Modifying Selections
The Select