There are at least 7 Elements 5 Selection Tools. Most of them are standard tools and a couple of others are unique.
As a matter of fact, I was surprised to find two of the tools are also included in Photoshop CS3.
The Tools
Marquee Tools
There are 2 Marquee Tools - rectangular and elliptical. The keyboard shortcut for these two is M. As their names imply, you can make either a rectangular or elliptical selection.
The elliptical marquee tool can be constrained to a perfect circle by pressing the Shift key as you make the selection.
Lasso Tools
There are 3 Lasso Tools - the Lasso Tool, the Magnetic Lasso Tool and the Polygonal Lasso Tool. The keyboard shortcut for the Lasso Tools is L.
The Lasso Tool can be thought of as a freehand selection. It is much easier to use when you are using a pen and tablet than it is when you are using a mouse.
The Polygonal Lasso Tool is straight lines only. Each time you tap the pen it creates a straight line from the last point. If you zoom in close enough you can create a very good selection.
The last one is the Magnetic Selection Tool. It seems so great and can be such a bother as it leaps about the screen finding areas of similar shading.
One of the great things about the Magnetic Selection Tool is this - it is Pressure Sensitive! To turn on the pressure sensitivity simply choose the magnetic selection tool and press the Caps Lock - that's it.
When you put the tool on your image you will notice it is a circle now rather than the little magnetic icon you are used to seeing. As you press harder with the pen the circle gets progressively smaller and smaller.
What is happening is that the circle is the area Photoshop Elements is sampling and as you press harder the sampling area becomes smaller and smaller.
This makes a nice, accurate selection.
The Neat New Tools
The first new elements 5 selection tool is the Magic Selection Brush Tool, keyboard shortcut F and the second is ...
the Selection Brush Tool, keyboard shortcut A.
Magic Selection Brush
The Magic Selection Brush tool makes a selection based on color and texture similarity when you draw, scribble, or click the area you want to select. The mark you make doesn’t need to be precise. When you lift your pen (or release the mouse), Elements draws the selection border.
Selection Brush Tool
The Selection Brush tool makes selections two ways: you can paint over the area you want to select in Selection mode, or you can paint over areas you don’t want to select using a semi-opaque overlay in Mask mode.
You can first make a rough selection with a marquee tool, Magic Selection Brush, or other selection tool, and then fine-tune your selection with the Selection Brush tool. You can add to the selection using the Selection Brush tool in the Selection mode, or subtract from it in Mask mode.
