How do you change the size of the rectangle margue in Photoshop Elements?

I have just been working on some images in the Photoshop Elements again and it has always annoyed me that when I use the rectangle selection tool, that once I let go of the mouse I cannot change its size, only move it. I doubted you couldn't I just didn't know how - a big difference!

I have discovered once you have let go of the mouse while using the selection tool (I noticed this works for the crop tool too - and no doubt others) you really cannot resize the selection BUT if you keep the mouse button down - and then press and hold the spacebar, when you do this the selection moves, let go of the spacebar and the selection resizes again. Do all of this while keeping the mouse button down.

I used to find myself selecting part of the screen and getting a rough size right but found I was a few pixels out and then would try to resize the selection - and this really doesn't work. So using the technique above allows you to get the surrounding size about right, find you are a few pixels out and then use the spacebar move option to nudge those pixels out and then release the bar and resize the image back again. Neat!

Whilst not difficult it did take a few goes to perfect the technique since my mind was still thinking draw the shape and then, after a coffee perhaps, go back and resize!!

Using the Stroke Command in Adobe Photoshop Elements

I couldn't believe when using Elements I never seemed to be able to draw a shape and just have an outline appear. The shape drawn always loads with a fill - as usual with thanks to the interweb I found some solutions - solutions since I found another problem along the way!

Ok so I have a filled image here - to get rid of the fill click on the shape tool again, on the tool bar select the style drop down - from the drop down click on the little double right arrows at the top right of the window that opens, select visibility and then select hide - you should then see your shape appear as an outline - at this point the shape is literally hidden, so although you can see an outline if you were to save the image there would be nothing there.

The next step is to use the stroke tool to outline the shape. This is where I initially had a problem, every time I tried to use Edit->Stroke the Stroke item was disabled/greyed out.

So.. add a new layer - you now have a shape layer and a new layer. Select the new layer, and then while holding down the control key left click on the shape thumbnail layer.

You should see your shape outline highlighted for selection. It is now possible to use the edit->stroke command.

From here you select the width of the new outline you want, color, the location of the outline and blending. Press OK to go. You now have an outline on the new layer you added. You can now infact delete the shape layer and continue to work with your outline that resides on the new layer added.