Make intelligent selections in Pixelmator Pro on Mac
Pixelmator Pro includes advanced selection tools that automatically detect edges, analyze colors and textures, and recognize subjects in your images.
Quickly select objects or subjects in an image
Use the Quick Selection tool to automatically select areas of an image by dragging in the canvas with a brush. Pixelmator Pro analyzes colors and textures to detect edges and objects in the image.
In Pixelmator Pro on Mac, select a layer in the Layers sidebar.
Select
from the Tools sidebar.
If you don’t see
In the Quick Selection pane, do any of the following:
Drag the Brush Size slider to adjust brush size.
To limit the selection to the currently selected layer, deselect the “Sample all layers” checkbox.
In the canvas, drag over an area to select it.
Automatically select a subject in an image
In Pixelmator Pro on Mac, do one of the following:
Choose Edit > Select Subject.
Select any selection tool in the Tools sidebar, then click Select Subject in the selection pane.
Pixelmator Pro analyzes the image and selects the primary subject. To select a subject while taking into account all document layers, not just the active layer, press and hold Option when clicking Select Subject in the selection pane.
Select similarly colored contiguous areas of an image
Use the Color Selection tool to select adjacent elements in an image that have similar colors.
In Pixelmator Pro on Mac, choose Tools > Select > Color Selection, or choose it from the tool group..
Optional: In the Color Selection pane, customize options for the Color Selection tool:
Sample all layers: Select this to make selections across all layers that are turned on in the Layers sidebar. Deselect this option to limit the selection to the currently selected layer.
Smooth edges: Select to naturally smooth the selection outline.
In the canvas, drag over an area to select it and keep dragging to expand the selection to other areas of the image with similar color.
Select all similarly colored areas in a document
You can automatically select noncontiguous, similarly colored areas of a document.
In Pixelmator Pro on Mac choose Edit > Select Color Range.
In the Select Color Range pane, select either or both of the following:
Sample all layers: Select this to make selections across all layers that are turned on in the Layers sidebar. Deselect this option to limit the selection to the currently selected layer.
Smooth edges: Select to smooth the selection outline.
To choose a color range, do either of the following:
Click the canvas to pick a color range.
In the Select Color Range pane, click the color well, then click a color.
In the Select Color Range pane, drag the Range slider to reduce or increase the range of color selected.
Select all opaque areas in a layer
If a layer contains areas of transparency, you can quickly select only the opaque areas.
In Pixelmator Pro on Mac, select a layer in the Layers sidebar.
Do any of the following:
Choose Edit > Load Selection.
Command-click a layer thumbnail in the Layers sidebar.