Select

The Select tool allows you to isolate parts of your content on a Drawing or the frame of a Flipbook.

There are multiple methods of selection, and your selection will be applied to your current layer or set of layers. To access the tool, enter a Drawing or Flipbook and then tap Select at the top of the interface. Tap Select again at any time to exit the tool:

Procreate Dreams offers three selection modes, each intended to make isolating different shapes of content easier. The following modes are available, and each are detailed in the sections below this explainer:

1. Freehand - freely draw a selection around your desired area, or tap on different spots to make a polygonal selection

2. Rectangle - make a quadrilateral selection of your content. Hold another finger down as you are making the selection to snap it to a perfect square

3. Ellipse - make an elliptical selection around your content. Hold another finger down as your making the selection to snap it to a perfect circle

With Add mode active, selections you make using the selection mode will create a new selection, or will be added to your existing selection.

With Remove active, selections you make will be subtracted from your current selection.

Tap on Invert to completely reverse your current selection.

Tap this to copy the content within the bounds of your selection and paste it immediately to a new drawing layer.

Immediately fills your selected area with the color you have selected in Colors (top right).

Clear the selected area completely. This will not remove the content, but only the selection itself.

Active selection

As you are making your selection, you'll see a moving black and white line indicating the area that will be contained within the selection.

Tap two fingers on the canvas to Undo a step, and three fingers to Redo. This can be useful if you have made a mistake with your selection.

When your selection is finalized and active, you'll see alternating diagonal lines moving from bottom left to top right. This is your selection mask. Anything not covered by these lines is part of your selection, anything covered by the lines is outside of your selection.

You can increase or decrease the visibility of this mask by heading to Settings → Canvas and adjusting the Selection mask visibility slider.

Freehand Selection

Use Apple Pencil or your finger to trace around an area that you'd like to select. Tap from point to point to create a polygonal selection, and tap the gray dot where you began your selection to finalize it.

Rectangle Selection

Create a selection using a rectangular shape. Drag across an area and release to select, and hold another finger down during the selection to snap this into a perfect square.

Ellipse Selection

Create a selection using an elliptical shape. Drag across an area and release to select, and hold another finger down while you're making the selection to snap it into a perfect circle.

Selection tips

1. You do not have to finalize a Freehand selection before modifying the content - simply tap a Paint tool, Filters, or Transform to have Selections close the loop on your selection.

2. With a selection active, scrub three fingers left and right on the canvas to remove the content in the selected area.

3. Quickly cut, copy and duplicate selections by swiping three fingers down and using the Copy & Paste menu. Keep in mind any duplicated/pasted content will appear in the very center of your canvas area, not necessarily your stage. You can only copy from a single layer at this stage.

4. If you have previously made a selection in this session, tap and hold on the tool itself (Select at the top) to reload your previous selection.