Thank you John... that's exactly what I'm trying to do.
I'm trying get the "marching ants" back after creating a layer (ctrl-J) so I can select the remainder of the image. For example, in an image of a simple terrain and sky--I'd make a selection of the terrain, make a layer of it, then go back to the image and select the sky (following exactly the same tracing I used for the terrain) and make it into a layer.
The "reselect" command (shift-ctrl-D) seems always to be grayed out on the menu and the keystrokes don't make it work, and the ctrl-shift on the actual layer does nothing either. And the ctrl-shift-I works only when I've got the "marching ants" to begin with.
I've received some good ideas from this forum, but I can't help but think I'm missing a simpler way...
Dennis