The ” MagicWand” tool

Another selection tool is the “Magic Wand” option.

The “Magic Wand” option makes a selection based on the color, hue, brightness, and opacity of an object. This works fine for selecting a portion of an image that has distinctly different pixels from those in other areas of an image, such as the hot air balloon as shown in the image below.

Select the “Magic Wand” option in the tool bar, and select the “Match mode” as the Color. You can then set the Tolerance as 26 which seems like a good value for this example, and click any where on the blue sky in the picture (1).
This selects the sky, but I do not want the sky just the balloon, so I invert the selection.
For those who do not know how to do that, click “Selections” in the menu bar and select “Invert” from the drop-down menu.

The only thing left now is to remove the trees from the selection which appear right below the picture.
Right now, nothing is being eliminated.
Select the “Selection” tool in the toolbar, select the Rectangle type, set the “Match mode” to Delete (2), and click and drag a rectangle around the trees.
As soon as you release the mouse button, the trees are removed from the selection.

 

Paint Selection

Another way to make a selection is with the “Brush” tool.

The first thing you do, of course, is to open the image.
Then click “Selections” in the menu bar and select “Edit Selection” from the drop-down menu.
This selection adds a layer to the “Layers” palette (1). This selected layer is completely black, which means nothing is selected, or rather that we have something that should be selected.
What you should know and remember especially when you work with a selection layer is that, black color represents that nothing is selected, and white or any other color represents that an image is selected.
If you want to select semi-transparent parts, then use a grey value.

 

We select the “Brush” tool in the tool bar (2), and select white as the foreground color (3).
Click and drag the mouse pointer over the portions of your photo that you want to select. This gives a transparent orange color to your image (4).
If you have too much color, there’s no problem, select black as the foreground color in the palette “Materials,” and select white (orange) in the redundant portions of the picture.

Then click the “Edit Selection” button (5) at the top of the palette “Layers”

When you click “Edit Selection” (5), the selected layer disappears and the selected part of the image is filled with color.

If you wish change the selection, again click “Selections” in the menu bar and select “Edit Selection” in the drop-down menu.

This selected layer will be displayed again, and you can further edit it.

 

Changing a selection

When we have made a selection, irrespective of which tool we use, we can change it in several ways.
I had already told you that by changing the selection mode you can remove and add portions, but there’s more to it.
We can also expand or contract a selection by a certain number of pixels.
Click the “Selections” tab in the menu bar, select “Modify” in the drop-down menu and select one of the two options.

This opens a dialog where you can set the number of pixels you want to contract or expand.

The minimum value is 1, the maximum value is 100.

The other options are “Feather”, inside and out, which seem quite clear to me.
We also have the options, “Select Similar Colors” and “Select Color Range”.

 

“Select Similar Colors” has the following options:

• Tolerance: controls how closely the selected pixels match the pixel you click in the image. At low settings, only similar pixels are chosen; at high settings, a wider range of pixels are selected.
• Color selection merged layers: Selects corresponding pixels in the merged image. If the checkbox is not selected, only selected pixels will be active in the layer.
• Anti-aliasing: It produces a smooth-edged selection by partially filling in pixels along the edge, making them semi-transparent. You can use this option inside or outside the selection marquee.
• Contiguous: Selects all pixels of similar color in adjacent areas.
• Noncontiguous: Selects all pixels of similar color anywhere within the image.

 

The second option, “Select Color Range” has two options, “Add Color Range” and “Delete Color Range.”
Click on a color in the image where you want to add or delete the selection. In the “Tolerance” text box, specify a value.
Shades of the similar colors are added or removed from the selection. In the “Softness” text box you specify the amount of softness referred to the color.

 

Finally we have the option to “Remove spots and holes.”

This seems clear to me. What I would like to say about this is, “Start with low values and increase them as necessary until the dots and holes are removed.”

 

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