Working with Selections
The marquee, lasso, and wand
tools are used to select parts of an icon for moving, copying,
or other operations.
If you hold down the option key while dragging a selection, it will leave a copy behind. If you hold down command and option, it will leave a trail (this may have undesired effects in 32-bit icons, so use it wisely). The shift key constrains dragging to horizontal and vertical movement (but you have to hold the key down after pressing the mouse button).
Through the magic of Macintosh Drag and Drop, you can also drag a selection outside of the window, either to another editing window or to another application (like to the Finder, to create a clipping file).
You can also use the shift key with the lasso and marquee tools to add to the selection, and the command key will subtract from the selection. It's fun.
You can also flip and rotate the contents of the selection using the commands in the Edit menu.
32-Bit Selections
Selections get a little more interesting when you're working with 32-bit icons, because a selection picks up the 8-bit mask as well. For example, if you open the standard 32-bit folder icon in Mac OS 8.5, select the folder's shadow, and drag it around, you'll see that it actually acts as a transparent shadow as you move it over other parts of the icon.
If it seems confusing that the shadow is solid black when it's over transparent areas, but a kind of transparent gray over opaque areas, read the explanation in the 32-Bit Transparency section.
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