How do I move a selected area?

I cannot imagine a more newbie-ish question, but I must be missing something rather basic.

I have a simple jpeg image (no layers). I simply want to select an area of that image and drag it elsewhere in the image.

In Microsoft Paint, I simply define the area with a rectangular or freeform selection tool, and drag it with the mouse.

In Photoshop Elements, I seem to be able to drag the dotted line selection outline (defined via the lasso or move tool), but the image itself that was lassoed stays put.

If I use the move tool, I can distort the image by dragging an edge of the selection outline, but I have not figured out how to drag the entire selection at once. If I drag from within the selected area, only the
selection outline moves, not the selected portion of the image. What am I missing?

- David D.

David,

You didn't say whether you wanted to preserve the original area of the image, or not, so I gave both ways. If you want to preserve, use the second method:

- To MOVE your selected area, leaving a "hole", hold the CTRL key while you drag
- To COPY your selected area, hold CTRL-ALT keys while dragging

HTH,

Byron

Or...

with the Move Tool selected;

drag = cut and paste
alt/drag = copy and paste