Copy Free Select Tool Path only

[james22]

The conventional copy command obtained by the free select tool makes a copy of the free select tool outline and what it encloses. Is it possible to copy the outline free select tool path only, move it to a new area, have the free select tool enclose some new material, and move the free select tool now with the new material back to sit over the original, exactly matching the original free select outline?

Maybe it already exists, but I don't know it's name!

Thanks in advance.

[rich2005]

(12-28-2024, 05:54 PM)james22 Wrote: The conventional copy command obtained by the free select tool makes a copy of the free select tool outline and what it encloses. Is it possible to copy the outline free select tool path only, move it to a new area, have the free select tool enclose some new material, and move the free select tool now with the new material back to sit over the original, exactly matching the original free select outline?

Maybe it already exists, but I don't know it's name!

Thanks in advance.

The thing to remember is making a selection (the crawling ants)  does not include the contents - you do that.  All the transform tools have a selection option, the second icon in the tool options.

You can save a selection to a channel, Select -> Save to Channel. This will catch you out. It makes the channel active and the layer you use inactive. Make sure you return to the layer dock and make the layer active again.

Use the Move tool in selection mode and move the "crawling ants" to the new location and Copy 

Back to the channels dock Right click in the selection channel and put to selection. This back to the original location.

Make sure you return to the layers dock, make the layer active (click on it) and Edit -> Paste.

This a 40 second animation of that https://i.imgur.com/RZBcQzS.mp4

[Ofnuts]

(12-28-2024, 05:54 PM)james22 Wrote: The conventional copy command obtained by the free select tool makes a copy of the free select tool outline and what it encloses. Is it possible to copy the outline free select tool path only, move it to a new area, have the free select tool enclose some new material, and move the free select tool now with the new material back to sit over the original, exactly matching the original free select outline?

Maybe it already exists, but I don't know it's name!

Thanks in advance.

See Edit > Paste into selection: whatever is pasted is cut to the existing selection, so you can paste something wide than then selection. as far as I can tell, the pasted item is centered in the selection (in other words the centres of the bounding boxes of the target selection and the copied over item are made to coincide. But thing are complicated if you import from the same image because you need two selections.

If everything in in the same image,  another solution is to create the selection mask over the target area,  then use the Move tool in Move selection mode (red square icon) to move the selection mask over the copied area, then copy/paste, and move the floating selection over the target before anchoring.

But IMHO the real solution to this problem is to copy paste an imported area wider that the target, move it under the target layer, and then erase the target layer (eraser, layer mask, or selection+delete) to see the imported area though the hole.

[james22]

Thank you Rich2005 and Ofnuts for your thoughts and suggestions. I have come to the conclusion that the existing methods may not be that laborious or that hard. So I appreciate your time and effort, but I'm going to stick with my current method.

Regards
Chris