Currently GIMP has two tools that can smartly select a region of a real photo - the scissors tool, and the magic select tool. The magic select tool is only useful under very specific circumstances. The scissors tool, while useful, is often suboptimal speed-wise.

I think a better way would be to create a smart brush-style selection tool, kind of a combination between quick mask and magic select. It would select up to edges in the image, but no farther than a certain distance set in it's options. This would allow rapid selection of an object, which could then easily be further refined with current methods, e.g. layer mask, quick mask, etc.

Does this sound like a useful feature?

I'm afraid not. I tried it, and it seems quite slow, and doesn't have a live preview.

Somebody just told me that Photoshop has a similar tool. I found a description of it here: http://www.photoshopcafe.com/cs3/qs.htm

On Thu, Feb 11, 2010 at 3:50 PM, Owen wrote:

Currently GIMP has two tools that can smartly select a region of a real
photo - the scissors tool, and the magic select tool. The magic select tool
is only useful under very specific circumstances. The scissors tool, while
useful, is often suboptimal speed-wise.

I think a better way would be to create a smart brush-style selection tool,
kind of a combination between quick mask and magic select. It would select
up to edges in the image, but no farther than a certain distance set in it's
options. This would allow rapid selection of an object, which could then
easily be further refined with current methods, e.g. layer mask, quick mask,
etc.

Does this sound like a useful feature?

Probably, but does the Foreground select tool meet your requirements?

--

Owen