Magic Tools

The “Magic Tools” are found in the right column of the toolbar.

These are the “Magic Brush” (1).
The “Magic Bucket” (2).
The “Magic Wand” (3).
And the “Magic Pen” (4).

 

The first three use the “Keep” and “Drop” windows plus the highlighters to determine which colors will be retained or removed.

The last, fourth, detects the edge in images.

Let me start by talking about the “Magic Brush” tool.
When this is selected, we find a number of options that we can set in the “Tool Options” panel.
With the first option, we determine the brush size (Brush Size) and the brush edge (Brush Edge).
The higher the percentage of the Brush Edge, the smoother the transition between the mask and the remaining pixels.
If it is a glass, smoke, or a bubble mask as in the belows case, set it to a high value, eg 85%.

Among the brush settings we have the “Transition” and “Threshold” options.
The lower the value of the “Threshold”, the lesser image is preserved.
In other words, the “threshold” determines how accurately the color should match with the colors in the “Drop” window.

And the last option is the “Use color decontamination” check box. Leave this checked. This eliminates background pixels on the edge of masked area.

There is another function with the “Magic Brush”, namely the “IntelliBrush”.
This function is automatically set when ther are no colors in the “Keep” or “Drop” window.

Whenever you click and drag with the “Magic Brush”, a temporary drop-color is selected.
This temporary drop-color does not appear in the “Drop” window. And it is updated when you click and drag again.
The following (1) is what remains when you click and drag the selected image without “Keep” and “Drop” colors. This example is shown in view Mask (2), otherwise you see nothing.

Save this image and drag it into another photo, then you see the bubbles (3).

All the highlights of the bubble are retained, while all the blue in the bubbles is gone.

I do not think, it can be done any faster in Photoshop.

The next “Magic” tool that I want to discuss is the “Magic Wand” tool.
The “Magic Wand” tool can be best used when your picture has a simple background.
You can use the “Magic Wand” tool in two ways.
One way is in conjunction with “Keep” and “Drop” colors, second way is through the “intelli wand.
This last method is automatically applied when no “keep” or “drop” colors are selected.
The intelligent wall is best used with a simple background color.
Select the “Magic Wand” tool, and click in the photo on the background color.
You will see that all background is removed neatly in the Mask View.

It took only 5 seconds for doing the below mask to with the “intelli wand”, and dragging the unsaved changes to another image.

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