DESELECT

How do you deselect a selection to get rid of the marching ants?

The Photoshop methods don't work and often the 'unselect all' function under 'edit' in GIMP is greyed out and yet the ants keep marching on!

Deselect in GIMP 2.6.6

The above command doesn't seem to work in my version of gimp, 2.6.6. -- The Select>None option is greyed out and the ants go marching on.

Are you sure that you do

Are you sure that you do have a selection? Note that floating selections - e.g. created by pasting something - are different.

Re: DESELECT

Good question. I had the same dilemma, but eventually figured it out. In the GIMP window, click on Select>None. Or, on the computer keyboard, Shift+Control+A.

I am using GIMP 2.6.2, but it should be similar with other recent versions. 

-Alex

Isn't it the same...

With photoshop it is exactly the same, Crl+Shift+A.

BTW nice "marching ants" First time i've heard it referded to like that. Also, magic wand is replaced by fuzzy select and select by color, which is the vierson that selects every single one of that color on the screen.

EDIT: Random i know but it put me through a loop when i first tried photoshop.

Read the original question!

It's stated that "Select" -> "None" is grayed out. I have the same problem after making an ellipsis selection and then pasting it to a new layer. I cannot deselect or unselect, but I can use other tools. Any ideas? And no, keyboard shortcuts don't work because the option is not available.

the problem is pasting that

the problem is pasting that DO NOT paste as layer but as a weird entity called "floating selection".

If created a "floating selection" will delete any previous selection

And you can't deselect a "floating selection" make no sense, so that Menu command are grayed out

But solution is simple :
do NOT "paste" BUT "Paste as/new layer"

Or if you need the "floating selection" as alternative save first the selection in a channel, then paste

If you do  always paste as

If you do  always paste as a new layer, then you will use the possiblity to quickly add the pasted content to the active layer (or, more precisely, drawable - think layer mask, channel, ...) by anchoring the floating selection.