2.6. Select By Color

Figure 14.27. Select by Color tool icon in the Toolbox

The Select by Color tool is designed to select areas of an image based on color similarity. It works a lot like the Fuzzy Select tool (“Magic Wand”). The main difference between them is that the Magic Wand selects contiguous regions, with all parts connected to the starting point by paths containing no large gaps; while the Select by Color tool selects all pixels that are sufficiently similar in color to the pixel you click on, regardless of where they are located.

2.6.1. Activating the tool

You can access the Select by Color Tool in different ways:

• From the image menu bar Tools → Selection Tools → By Color Select,

• by clicking on the tool icon in the ToolBox,

• by using the keyboard shortcut Shift +O.

2.6.2. Key modifiers (Defaults)

The select by color tool does not have any special key modifiers, only the ones that affect all selection tools in the same way. See Selection Tools for help with these.

2.6.3. Handling tool

Figure 14.28. Using Select by Color tool: selected pixels are not only contiguous

As with fuzzy tool, the selection starts as soon as you click and the reference is the first clicked pixel. If you click and drag, you can change the threshold by the same way as with the fuzzy tool.

You can move the selection outline with the arrow keys, not with the mouse.

2.6.4. Options

Figure 14.29. Tool Options for the Select by Color tool

Normally, tool options are displayed in a window attached under the Toolbox as soon as you activate a tool. If they are not, you can access them from the image menu bar through Windows → Dockable Windows → Tool Options which opens the option window of the selected tool.

	Note
	See Selection Tools Options for help with options that are common to all these tools. Only options that are specific to this tool are explained here.

Select transparent areas, Sample merged, Draw mask

These three options work exactly the same way they were described for the fuzzy selection already. See for Section 2.5.4, “Options” details.