ellipse tool problem

[alancsalt]

Putting myself on the newbie because I don't know how to change the way this works.

When I select the elliptical marquee tool it shows with a plus sign by the cursor. I draw an ellipse and let go of the mouse button a minus sign appears below the plus sign. If I click on the mouse again it starts drawing another ellipse when my intent was to banish the first ellipse.

That's how it works with a square or rectangle. So how do I change the elliptical marquee tools behaviour to match the other marquee tools?

 

[peta62]

It sounds strange, on my CS5 they both work the same, just a tool - no sign, shift - plus, Alt - minus.

 

[alancsalt]

As you can see I can add ellipses within the first drawn, or if they intersect, they take a chunk out of the original. If I draw outside the original the new one just disappears.

Could this be a consequence of incorrectly added presets or brushes?

Edit: Just discovered that if i open the 32 bit shortcut, the elliptical marquee tool there works normally....

 

[AbdulW87]

make sure when you are using the marque tool, the left icon is selected as in picture this will create a new marque every time. hope this helps but if this doesnt solve your problem you know what to do.

 

[Josiah Feuerbacher]

You have the selection type set as "subtract" on the options bar (but only for the ellipse tool, it sounds like). You need to set that back to "normal". See image. Hope this helps.

 

[alancsalt]

Abdul, you got it! Looks like you two posted pretty much at the same time, and spot on. I never stop finding new things in PhotoShop, even when not looking for them it seems. Thank you both.