rectangular gradient background image inside another ??

[cyberpine]

not a graphics/photoshop guy here.

This one will be obvious to anybody who is.

I'm working on a 800px w x 300h image.

inside of which I want an 800x300 rectangular image with linear
gradient background color, the rest if is transparent with other images
on top. I create a new layer and use the Rectangular Marquee tool to
select the area before using the gradient tool to color it - it takes.. dumb
question is.. the Rectanguar tool continues to display the dashed outline as if waiting for something..

how do I safe/finalize/finish so that it's not waiting for me to do something
else? I'm sure my approach is wrong.

Thanks for any help or information.

[vegasarian]

Select>Deselect?

[tombothetominator]

^^ agree. Or if you want a keyboard shortcut CTRL+D will do the trick. With what you are doing it isn't actually waiting for you to finalize it, but it keeps your selection active incase you want to lay out your gradient differently, or do something else within that space.