If you try to use it before that, you’ll simply move your selection area instead of the actual contents, or you’ll move the entire image, depending on the Move tool mode. What About the Move Tool?ĭespite the fact that GIMP has a Move tool, you can only use it to move your selection once you’ve already floated it. It makes much more sense to me to separate your selection to a new layer permanently, but I’ll explain that in more detail later on. Personally, I find this workflow a bit limited, but it can be handy if you’re just making a single change and you want to finish up as quickly as possible. You can create a new layer using your floating selection using the green new layer button in the bottom left of the Layers palette, anchor your floating selection to resume editing the whole image, or delete your floating selection (which also deletes the selection contents). The Layers palette displaying my floating selection The fastest way to do this is to hold down the Ctrl and Alt keys (Cmd and Option on a Mac) and simply click and drag with your mouse to move the area you’ve selected. Once you’ve got it just right, the next step is to turn your selection into something GIMP calls a ‘floating selection’. Holding down the Shift key while drawing a new selection will add to your existing selection, and holding down the Ctrl key will subtract from it. If you want to adjust your selection area, you can tweak it using the handles, or combine it with another selection. For bonus points, try using the Selection Editor!
These instructions work with all selection tools in GIMP, so feel free to experiment with different combinations. The simplest way to move a selection in GIMP starts, unsurprisingly, with making your selection using any of the selection tools. Since it’s such a common operation, there are quite a few different ways that you can make a selection and move it around your image until you get it just right. One of the most essential functions of an image editor is to let you move sections of your image around.