how to use magic wand tool to cut command

Feather: 0.5 px – softens, or feathers, the edge of the selection.Smooth: 3 – rounds over any jagged parts, giving the selection a smoothed boundary.To begin refining the selection, start with these settings: The Global Refinements section along the right side of the window allows you to make incremental adjustments to specific attributes, until the desired changes are achieved. The View dropdown in the upper right will allow you to change how the selection is separated from the background. With the selection still live and either the Magic Wand or Lasso tools active, click the Select and Mask button at the top of the app window, or hit Command + Option + R like a pro. This will flip the selection, making the subject the live selection, instead of the background. When you have collected all the stray pixels, and the “marching ants” selection is reasonably tight against the subject, hit Command + Shift + I to Select Inverse. Holding Shift, just Lasso the remaining background by using big sweeping strokes. Fine-tuning with the Lasso and Shift key. This lets you fine tune specific areas and put more space between the subject and the background. Hold Shift, to add to the live selection, and draw the area next to the subject. Where you found the Magic Wand not entirely connecting in the background, we’ll use the Lasso to grab that area manually. If you’re finding yourself in single digit adjustments, bail out and come back to it in the next step. Change the number by 10, up or down, until you find the sweet spot for the particular area. If you find the wand tedious or conversely too hungry, adjust the Tolerance. This is about all the precision you need for the initial selection.

If the selection runs into the subject, hold Option and click that area to deselect it, according to the Tolerance value. Hold Shift and keep clicking up and around each shift in color, concentrating your clicks where the subject meets the background. Now just click in the background (the area you want to remove) near the subject to separate them. At the top of the app window you’ll see a field that says Tolerance and enter 20. Select the Magic Wand from the Tools window. Use the Magic Wand to Define the Main Boundaries Even with the sand-colored, fine fur against an out-of-focus background, it’s not as hard or as time-consuming as you might think. But, by combining the tools it’s actually quite simple. I chose an image that looks to be a nightmare to separate from the background. In this guide, we will go over straightforward, uncomplicated methods to help you get the best selections possible.įor this guide, we’ll use the Magic Wand and Lasso to show just how good these seemingly basic tools can be.

Compositing, or making a new image by combining two or more images, is one of the foundations of the program.Īfter making selections, refining the edges prepares for smooth isolation. Making selections is the first step in using Photoshop to isolate subjects and parts of images. Further readingĪs well as using the Quick Selection and Magic Wand tools, there are many other ways you can select pixels in Photoshop.Try these techniques to make better, more natural selections, so you can isolate subjects in an image with a smooth edge. As with the Quick Selection tool, you can also check the Sample All Layers option to base the selection on pixels from all layers.įor more on the Quick Selection and Magic Wand tool options, see Modifying selections in Photoshop. If you deselect Contiguous, all pixels of the same colour will be selected. If you check the Contiguous box next to Tolerance, then only adjacent areas of the same colour will be selected. Experiment with different Tolerance values so that most or all of your object gets selected, without selecting the background as well.

If you set the Tolerance to a lower value, then only pixels that are very similar to the shade of red you clicked on will be selected. For example, if you click on a red pixel when the Tolerance is set very high, the Magic Wand tool might also select pixels that are pink and orange. If the Tolerance value is high, a wider range of colours will be selected.

How to use magic wand tool to cut command