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### 3.4. Selection masks

Channels can be used to save and restore your selections. Clicking on the Quick mask button on the Image window automatically creates a new channel called Qmask and saves the displayed active selection to a thumbail in front of the channel.There are many selection tools in the Gimp like rectangular selection tool or fuzzy selection for continuous selections. Selection Masks are a graphical way to build selections into a gray level channel where white pixels are selected and black pixels are not selected. Therefore gray pixels are partially selected. You can think of them as feathering the selection, a smooth transition between selected and not selected. This is important to avoid the ugly pixelization effect when you fill the selection or when you erase its content after isolating a subject from background.

Creating Selection Masks

  There are several ways to initialize a selection mask. From the image window menu Select/ Save to Channel is available if there is an active selection. From the image window the bottom-left button creates a Quick Mask; the content will be initialized with the active selection. From the channel dialog, when you click on the New channel button or from the context menu.

#### Using Selectionmasks

Once the channel is initialized, selected (highlighted in blue), visible (eye-icon in the dialog), and displayed as you want (color and opacity attributes), you can start to work with all the paint tools. The colors used are important. If you paint with some color other than white, grey, or black, the color Value (luminosity) will be used to define a gray (medium, light, or dark). When your mask is painted, you can transform it to a selection by clicking on the Channel to selection button or from the context menu.

| Tip
You can work in selection masks not only with the paint tool but also with other tools. For instance, you can use the selection tools to fill areas uniformly with gradients or patterns. By adding many selection masks in your list you can easily compose very complex selections. One can say that a selection mask is to a selection as a layer is to an image.

| Caution
As long as a selection mask is activated you are working in the mask and not in the image. To work in the image you have to deactivate all selection masks. Don't forget also to stop displaying masks in the image by removing the eye icon. Check also that all RGB and Alpha channels are activated and displayed in the image.

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