#HOW TO USE MAGIC WAND TOOL PIXLR HOW TO#

Here’s the butterfly isolated into its own layer. You may need significantly less than 100% if you’re using the mouse–if you’re using a pressure sensitive tablet, you’ll be able to control the strength much more accurately, and will likely want a high setting. There are a lot of settings, and you may have to experiment with the ones that suit you best, but the most important is the “Strength” of the Smudge Tool. Click and hold down the Blur Tool until you can switch to the Smudge Tool. You’ll want to find the smudge tool buried in your toolbox. There is a handy trick to take a rough selection like this one and turn it into a convincing fuzzy-edged object. For our demonstration purposes, we’re going to use it and show you how we can successfully get a good image out of this bad mask. You can safely ignore using the “Refine Mask” tool in the Mask Panel if your results are as poor as this one. While the Edge Detection in Photoshop can be very useful, it’s not a magic, one-size fits all solution. The computer struggles to mask out the proper parts of the butterfly and properly isolate the object. We can refine our results with the Mask Panel and “Mask Edge” but it’s a little bit like getting blood from a stone. This was done with the paint bucket, and simply gives horrid results. This mask obviously is doing a horrible job of actually cutting out this butterfly. Let’s take a quick look at the tool for editing masks, and see how we can improve the selection and keep those fuzzy edges. Some objects, like this butterfly, have soft edges, and are notoriously hard to cut out. One of the flagship features of Photoshop CS5 is the tools for refining masks with “Smart Radiuses,” to help mask objects accurately and quickly. Removing Fuzzy Objects From The Background Simply using the right settings will help you isolate your objects better, if not perfectly. It also includes the option for feathering, which creates a more rounded selection, and anti-aliasing, which evens out those rough lines.ĭon’t forget to watch our tutorial video to learn tips, tricks and hints for mastering the Magic Wand and everything else Photoshop has to offer.The difference is pretty obvious the left image uses a Tolerance of 5 and no anti-aliasing, while the right uses a tolerance of 40 with anti-aliasing. The Magic Wand is similar to Photoshop’s other selection tools in that it allows you to easily add and subtract from your chosen areas without having to repeatedly go through the process from scratch. If your subjects fade into the background, or into each other, there are better, more precise ways of achieving your goals.

You may be better served taking the time to use a Lasso tool to select the area you want rather than relying on Photoshop’s automatic tool. When Should You Skip This Tool?ĭo you have an image that is fairly monotone or blurry? If so, the Magic Wand will not help you. If you talk to many Photoshop users, you will find that the Magic Wand feature is commonly used to select solid backgrounds. However, when you are first starting with Photoshop, you may want to stick with images that have clear contrasts and clean lines.

#HOW TO USE MAGIC WAND TOOL PIXLR HOW TO#

With a little effort and some time spent learning how to use its features, the Magic Wand is useful with any image. If you have a shade of purple that is a close match for a shade of gray, for example, giving Photoshop the directive to have a more precise threshold makes the Magic Wand even more useful. What makes the Magic Wand feature even more useful is the fact that you can tweak the tolerance. This is helpful anytime you need to alter a specific color throughout your project. Photoshop actually does a great job of finding matching shades within an image. Using the Magic Wand Options bar, you can choose to select only those pixels that share a common border, or you can attempt to allow Photoshop to find all pixels within the image. When you click any pixel, the Magic Wand finds others that it detects as a match. Simply put, the Magic Wand automatically selects an area on your image based on its color and tone. Read on to discover the right time to use the Magic Wand and when to avoid it. In fact, there are many times when the tool is more mess than magic.

The Magic Wand is much more nuanced than a click of a button. You simply find the Magic Wand on the tool bar, choose which part of the image needs to be selected, and presto! Your work is done. Photoshop’s Magic Wand tool was created to help users easily select areas of an image with just one click.

How to use magic wand tool pixlr