The Magic Wand is probably one of the most powerful tools in a photo editing software like Photoshop. Through its development, it is now possible to select areas in a single click.
An Introduction to the Magic Wand Tool
The magic wand tool is perhaps one of the most important developments in photo editing software. It is used to select areas of similar color using a single click. To activate the tool, all you need to do is to click on the magic wand tool from the toolbox. Important note: unlike the lasso and marquee tools, there are no other options for tool shape with the magic wand.
The capabilities of this tool become apparent if you want to select consistently colored areas without having to trace outlines. Let's take for example the photo on the right (click image to enlarge). If you wanted to select the whole background for editing, all you need to do is to click on the part of the image you want and a wide area which has the same color will be selected.
Look at the same image again and notice the selected part. The background on the left side of the image has a lot of areas which are selected. This selection was made by a single click. Now check out the right side, it has the same color as the left, so why wasn't it included in the selection? Well, the answer is pretty simple - because the pixels of the background are separated by the body of the backpacker - the pixels are not adjacent to each other.
Look closer and you will notice that the area on the left of the image which is nearest to the edge has not been selected. This can be attributed to the tool's tolerance setting.
The Options Toolbar
Just like Photoshop's other selection tools, the magic wand also has several options. The options bar is located at the top of the window. Working modes available for this tool includes add to selection, subtract from selection and intersect. Additionally, if you right click on your selection, you will see options, such as grow and similar, which are most commonly used to expand the selections.
Aside from the working modes, other options available include the tolerance. In the box, you can type any number from 0 to 255. Basically, when you use a low number, your selections will be strict in choosing pixels, and colors are very similar. A higher number will let you choose a broader range of colors.
Putting a check mark on the "anti-aliased" option will allow you to partially select pixels in the border of your selection. This aims to create a smooth border so that digital editing done on the photo is not easily recognizable. When you put a check mark in "contiguous", only the adjacent pixels of the same color (or color range, in the case of a high tolerance) are selected. If the photo you are editing has multiple layers, then it is best to leave the check mark on "sample all layers".
Please continue on to page 2, where you will learn how to make accurate selections using Photoshop's Magic Wand tool.
Using the Basic Selection Tools in Adobe Photoshop
The power of Adobe Photoshop lies in the user's ability to create more accurate selections. In this series, you will learn how basic selection tools work. You will also learn about keyboard shortcuts which can make your job a lot easier.