[Gimp-user] Similar function?

[Jeffry Killen <jekillen prodigy net>]

Hello;

It is not clear to me as I dig into the manual for Gimp, if there
is a tool that does what the magic wand tool does in Photoshop.

I have used the magic wand tool to select a solid background
(single specific colored pixels such as white) in an image.
Then inverting the selection so only the image part is selected.
Then I can copy the selected image part and paste it into a layer
in another file.

In this way the image part now has a transparent background
and can be combined with other image elements in the layer stack.

I have done this often to create collage layouts.

The way I get an image with a solid background is to use the
pen tool in Photoshop and drag paths around the part of the
image I want to carve out. Then I create a selection from the
path. Once the selection is made I can copy the selected part
of the image into a separate file with a solid background.
( I now have a separate file that can be reverted to if further
image processing is unacceptable). 

I am aware that there are other ways to isolate parts of an image
but they seem to waste much of the time saved by having to clean
them up and/or use trial and error to get exactly the right selection area.

Thank you for time and attention;
Jeff K