Selection

Use the button in the toolbar to enter selection mode. With an active selection, all drawing will be masked to the selection area.

Artwork by Chelsea Faust.

Tools

There are three different tools available for creating a selection.

Freehand

With freehand selection tool you can draw the outline of any shape to create a selection area. Draw by dragging across the screen for a freehand lasso style selection, or tap on the screen for a polygonal lasso.

Rectangular

Using the rectangular selection tool, touch and drag across the screen to create a selection area by defining the two opposite corners of a rectangle.

Colour

Use the colour selection tool to quickly create a selection from pixels on the current cel of a particular colour. To create the selection, tap on any pixel on the canvas of the target colour.

With this tool, you’ll see a ‘Contiguous’ option appear in the toolbar. With ‘Contiguous’ turned on, only pixels connected to the target pixel will be included. With ‘Contiguous’ off, all pixels of the same colour on the current cel will be included.

Modes

There are three different modes available for creating and modifying selections. These only apply if there is already an existing selection. If there is currently no selection, a new selection will be created regardless of the mode.

Add

In add mode, newly created selections are added to the existing selection.

Subtract

In subtract mode, newly created selections are subtracted from the existing selection.

Transform

In transform mode, you can use the transformation handles to resize and move the selection. This will transform the selection itself, not the selected pixels. To transform the selected pixels, switch to the move tool.

Actions

Additional actions are available in selection mode on the selection action bar beneath the canvas.

Deselect

Deselect will end the current selection and place any selected pixels that are being moved or transformed. The deselect button is shown on screen for all tools when there is an active selection.

Invert

Use the ‘Invert’ button to invert the current selection within the bounds of the canvas.

Cut, copy, and paste

Use the ‘Cut’ and ‘Copy’ buttons to cut and copy the pixels in the selection on the current cel. This will copy and image which can easily be pasted into the current project, another Pixaki project, or any other app that supports pasting images. Copying or cutting will end the current selection.

Use the ‘Paste’ button to paste an image to the canvas. Pasting an image will automatically switch to the move tool where you can position and resize the image. You can switch between layers and frames to change the cel on which the image will be pasted. Change to a different tool to place the pasted image in its current location.