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GIMP has a very useful feature for the Rect Select Tool: "Auto Shrink". It shrinks the rectangular selection to the rectangle of a smallest size which still contains all NON-TRANSPARENT PIXELS of the original selection. Please see the example below.

Is there any way to do this in Photoshop? I know there is a way in Photoshop to crop the whole image to a smallest size, but I don't want to change the image size. I just want to shrink the selection.

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    Not exactly the same, but should produce similar results in most situations: Right click layer thumbnail: Select pixels. Alternatively: Ctrl + Left click the thumbnail ( Cmd+click on mac). Also, what is it that you're trying to do, that requires you to make that selection? I'm just thinking that it might be possible to skip this step or otherwise improve the workflow.
    – Joonas
    Commented May 6, 2016 at 11:16
  • Yeah, I think you are right. I, actually, don't need RECTANGULAR selections in my workflow. General selections from your answer will do the same job. For some reasons I just used to work with rectangular selections previously, when I worked in GIMP... Thank you!
    – subGlitch
    Commented May 6, 2016 at 11:34

1 Answer 1

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  • Draw a selection around the object.
  • Go to Selection > Transform Selection.
  • Drag all four sides to the edge of the object until they snap.
  • You now have the smallest rectangular selection of the object.

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