Save Selection

A place to talk about anything else with other Pixelmator users.
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2019-07-08 15:20:08

Pro user of Photoshop since 1990. Beta tester on Pixelmator. Long time user. Pixelmator Pro issue.
Under the Edit menu is "Load Selection" but there is no way I can determine to SAVE a selection.
By selection I mean the dancing ants selection border crated by whatever tool is used to select.
In PS under Select is Save Selection (goes to a n added channel) and Load Selection to reuse a previous
selection. No one at support seems to have any idea about this.

In Pixelmator Load Selection seems to only do what Select All does.

Any ideas out there???
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2019-07-08 17:37:58

Hi Clay.

Load Selection (mouse shortcut Cmd-click on an image or mask in the layers panel) takes the opacity of the currently selected layer (or currently selected mask) and loads it into a selection. If the current layer is completely opaque and has no mask then the selection will be the entire canvas (and therefore equivalent to Select All). The layer is left untouched by this operation so you can keep pulling the same layer (or mask) back as a selection as often as you want. Note if the layer is masked then Load Selection applied to a layer pulls the opacity of the layer after the mask has been applied.

Because I usually load a selection by Cmd-clicking on a mask, I think of logical inverse of the Load Selection is Add Mask* (right click on layer and Add Mask or Format > Mask > Add Mask) since this takes the current selection and turns it into a mask for the currently selected layer (provided that there isn't a mask already in place). Add mask removes the selection so, if you still need the area selected, follow Add Mask by loading the selection back from a mask.

As a blank layer with a mask won't change your final image, you can store as many selections as you are willing to keep blank layers with attached masks in your .pxd file.

Hope this helps.

- Stef.
*If you typically load your selection from a layer rather than a mask, you could think of the inverse of load mask as the Cmd-delete shortcut as this will fill the current selection (or entire layer if there is no selection) with the current foreground colour.
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2023-05-31 17:45:12

I've come across the same and similar issue Clay, the 'Load Selection' feature cannot be used in the same fashion as Photoshop because a 'Save Selection' feature is not implemented. Similarly, 'Replace Mask...' brings you to a Finder dialog to load a separate mask file, but no 'Save Mask...' option is available in the first place.