If you hit Delete when making a selection area can the pixels in or out of it be deleted only please

Selections are anti-aliased i.e. the edges of diagonals are feathered so as not to introduce visible stepping.

You could instead add a mask and draw on it with the pencil tool which is not anti-aliased. Copying the layer and inverting the mask gives an exact invert.

Dave

Hmm, I seem to have made a work around it.

You hit ctrl J heaps of times to make copies then ctrl E them all execpt the last one
you then use that last one as a reference to delete pixels off the copies.
when you deleted all the pixels you delete the original

takes a while but I guess it's what happens if theres faded pixels. \__(o,o)__/

Are you saying that app is deleting pixels on its own when you Ctrl + click on layer thumbnail to create selection from transparency?

@Clay27030956lphw 

Yes.

Jane

Hey Jane
Did you see the pictures I Posted?

is there a setting i'm missing to specifically delete inside or outside the selection area if I selected inverse or not?

By @Clay27030956lphw

I read your post three times and can't quite follow what you are doing, but here is the easy way:

• Make a selection on the layer
• Click the Layer Mask button at the bottom of the Layers panel to hide what you don't want to see.
• Type "D" to set your colors to B&W
• Use the Brush tool to paint non-destructively on the mask (not on the image) to fine-tune what you are seeing/hiding

https://www.adobe.com/products/photoshop/masking.html 

Jane