How do I resize a selection marquee?

[R C-R]

5 minutes ago, Stokestack said:

That does work, although there's still no way to set an aspect ratio.

The aspect ratio can be set using the transform panel, as described in the other topic.

[Stokestack]

Described in the other topic? I describe it in the same post you just quoted.

[GarryP]

5 hours ago, Stokestack said:

there's still no way to set an aspect ratio

I don’t understand what you mean by “set an aspect ratio”.
If you use the Quick Mask, as mentioned ealier, then dragging a corner handle will maintain the same aspect ratio?
Can you explain a bit more about what you want to do?

[Stokestack]

Maintaining is not the same as setting. How do you set it in the first place?

Let's say you're preparing some stills for use in a video. Typically, video has a 16:9 aspect ratio. Typically, an image-editing program will let you type "16" and "9" into a couple of fields to constrain the rectangular-selection tool to that aspect ratio.

Where are those fields in Photo?  Apparently they don't exist.

[GarryP]

Thanks for the extra information.
While using the Quick Mask, with an existing selection, in the Transform Panel, you can type 16 into the W field and 9 into the H field and then resize the selection as appropriate.
Does that do what you want?

Edited June 10, 2021 by GarryP

[R C-R]

13 hours ago, Stokestack said:

Described in the other topic? I describe it in the same post you just quoted.

Among other places this method was explained here by @Old Bruce.

[Stokestack]

15 minutes ago, R C-R said:

Among other places this method was explained here by @Old Bruce.

Which is the same as what I said in the post you quoted. It's also bogus because you can't resize the marquee on the canvas while maintaining the aspect ratio.

[Stokestack]

7 hours ago, GarryP said:

Thanks for the extra information.
While using the Quick Mask, with an existing selection, in the Transform Panel, you can type 16 into the W field and 9 into the H field and then resize the selection as appropriate.
Does that do what you want?

Yes, this does work, thanks. R-C-R brought this workaround up in another thread also.

[R C-R]

14 minutes ago, Stokestack said:

Which is the same as what I said in the post you quoted.

Then why did you say on page 1 of this topic "although there's still no way to set an aspect ratio"??? 

20 minutes ago, Stokestack said:

It's also bogus because you can't resize the marquee on the canvas while maintaining the aspect ratio.

You can do that using the Quick Mask + Move Tool method. Note that depending on how Preferences > Tools > Move Tool Aspect Ratio is set, you may need to use the Shift key to resize the marquee & maintain its aspect ratio.

[Stokestack]

14 hours ago, Stokestack said:

Thanks for that reply. That does work, although there's still no way to set an aspect ratio. You have to type some multiple of the dimensions into the transform panel and then resize the mask area with a corner handle.

Needless to say, the necessity for this workaround is.... you guessed it... ridiculous.

That's why. There's no "constrain to aspect ratio" with height and width fields in the toolbar for the rectangular-selection tool where they belong.

[R C-R]

39 minutes ago, Stokestack said:

That's why. There's no "constrain to aspect ratio" with height and width fields in the toolbar for the rectangular-selection tool where they belong.

That does not mean there is no way to constrain the aspect ratio, only that it can't be done the way you would prefer.

Also keep in mind the way it can be done works with all 'marching ants' selections, not just those created with the Rectangular Marquee Tool.

[Stokestack]

There is no explicit aspect-ratio constraint function as there is in other graphics software. Play word games and cite ridiculous workarounds all you want, if you're that bored. The rest of us can move on.

[R C-R]

5 minutes ago, Stokestack said:

There is no explicit aspect-ratio constraint function...

There is in the Transform panel, which is usable with the Quick Mask function & Move Tool. It works with all marching ants selections, regardless of which selection too(s) made the selection.

[Stokestack]

Exactly, a ridiculous workaround limited to one tool in combination with two other tools... none of which is the primary selection tool, for which it was originally requested.

[R C-R]

The Move Tool & Quick Mask function both have keyboard shortcuts so it takes less than a second to set that up. Do that & you have access to all the fields in the Transform panel & all the the on-canvas functions of the Move Tool. It works with both continuous & non-continuous selections, shears & rotations, & with the aspect ratio lock on still preserves the aspect ratio.

You may consider it a ridiculous workaround; I do not.

[Stokestack]

If the application had a proper aspect-ratio control, you wouldn't need to touch a key or change modes. You'd set it once, and then you could click & drag to draw your marquees in the perfect aspect ratio every time at any size, visually encompassing the portion the image that you wanted to grab. No masking, no panels.

Crazy, huh?

And then if we had other crazy things like an always-visible display of your document's dimensions, you'd have an idea how much of the image you'd need in order to provide sufficient resolution for (as an example) HD or UHD video.

Downright ludicrous, no?

Oh wait, I just discovered something that actually is ludicrous. The Crop tool has an aspect-ratio lock, making it even more ridiculous that it's missing from the selection tool. The logic is already written. In fact, the Crop tool goes one better by offering a list of common aspect ratios even in free-form mode.  Why is this not in the selection tool?

 

[Brian_J]

On 6/9/2021 at 2:44 PM, R C-R said:

In AP did you try this:

• Make your marching ants selection using any of the selection tools
• Enable Quick Mask from the toolbar (or with the "Q" keyboard shortcut
• Switch to the Move Tool
• You should now be able to use the bounding box resize handles or the Transform panel to adjust the size (or move, rotate, or shear the selection around on the canvas)
• Exit Quick Mask mode to continue

@R C-R Brilliant... just what I was looking for. Thanks.