Introduction
Gimp provides a much easier way of quickly performing paint-related tasks such as making selections and drawing paths.

The five categories we’ll be talking about are:
- Selection tools, which specify or modify the portion of the image that will be affected by subsequent actions;
- Paint tools, which alter the colors in some part of the image;
- Transform tools, which alter the geometry of the image;
- Color tools, which alter the distribution of colors across the entire image;
- Other tools, which don't fall into the other four categories.

The Selection Tools
1. The Rectangle Selection tool is designed to select rectangular regions of the active layer: it is the most basic of the selection tools, but very commonly used.
2. The Ellipse Selection tool is designed to select circular and elliptical regions from an image, with high-quality anti-aliasing if you want it.
3. The Free Selection tool, or Lasso, lets you create a selection by drawing it free-hand with the pointer, while holding down the left mouse button (or, for a stylus, pressing it against the tablet).
4. The Fuzzy Select (Magic Wand) tool is designed to select areas of the current layer or image based on color similarity. When using this tool, it is very important to pick the right starting point. If you select the wrong spot, you might get something very different from what you want, or even the opposite.
5. The Select by Color tool is designed to select areas of an image based on color similarity. It works a lot like the Fuzzy Select tool (“Magic Wand”). The main difference between them is that the Magic Wand selects contiguous regions, with all parts connected to the starting point by paths containing no large gaps; while the Select by Color tool selects all pixels that are sufficiently similar in color to the pixel you click on, regardless of where they are located.
6. The Intelligent Scissors tool is an interesting piece of equipment: it has some features in common with the Lasso, some features in common with the Path tool, and some features all its own. It is useful when you are trying to select a region defined by strong color-changes at the edges.
7. The foreground select tool: This tool lets you extract the foreground from the active layer or from a selection.

The Other Tools
8. The Paths tool allows to create complex selections called Bézier Curves, a bit like Lasso but with all the adaptability of vectorial curves.
9. The Color Picker Tool is used to select a color on any image opened on your screen. By clicking a point on an image, you can change the active color to that which is located under the pointer.
10. The Zoom Tool is used to change the zoom level of your working image. If you o