When we speak of color corrections, it's important to be careful with the corrections you do. This article describes Gimp's selection tools and the different ways you can handle selections, and also gives a small introduction to some color correction tools. The tools T his toolbar shows Gimp 1.0.4, a stable version. But I would surely recommend you to install a recent developer's version, because of the new features it has. The lasso , for selecting a zone you draw by hand.
Options are anti-aliasing and soften The fuzzy selection tool , to select a continuous region.
The rough selection can then be refined with other tools. It takes some time before you know how to use this tool correctly. You can save a path and you can also turn an existing selection into a path. With either white or black as painting color, you can freely retouch your selection very efficiently. You can make a selection invisible while keeping it active, very practical because you won't be distracted by the dotted line and you can concentrate on the retouch.