3.2.6. Scissors Tool

The Intelligent Scissors are designed to select areas of the current layer or image by finding regions of different color weight and forming lines between them. This is a difficult concept to explain in words and you are encouraged to use the tool and see it for yourself.

Activate Tool
  • The Scissors Tool can be called in the following order, from the image-menu: Tools/ Selection Tools/Intelligent Scissors.

  • The Tool can also be called by clicking the tool icon:

Key modifiers (Defaults)
Shortcut

The i key will change the active tool to Intelligent Scissors.

Ctrl

Holding Ctrl while creating a selection will place the selection into subtraction mode (see above).

Alt

Holding Alt will allow movement of the current selection.

Shift

Holding Shift while creating a selection will change the selection mode to addition (see above).

Ctrl+Shift

Using Ctrl-Shift will change the selection mode to intersection (or union).

Options

Overview

The available tool options for Intelligent Scissors can be accessed by double clicking the Intelligent Scissors tool icon.

Mode

Replace mode will cause any existing selection to be destroyed or replaced when the new selection is created.

Add mode will cause the new selection to be added to any existing selection regions.

Subtract mode will remove the new selection area from any existing selection regions.

Intersection mode will make a new selection from the area where the existing selection region and the new selection region overlap.

Antialiasing

This option performs no function for this tool and is present to unify the user interface between the various selection types.

Feather Edges

The Radius slider adjusts the amount of feathering in pixels for the next selection that is created. For further information regarding feathering, see the glossary entry Feathering.

Show Interactive Boundary

If this option is enabled, dragging the node during placement will indicate the path that will be taken by the selection line.

Additional information
[Warning] Warning
Selections can exist on the visible canvas only. However, selection movements and changes are kept in the undo buffer should you need to repair an error.