The Magic Wand Tool, one of the oldest selection tools in Photoshop, is a powerful and versatile tool that allows users to quickly select areas of images and make independent edits. It is most commonly used for selecting solid backgrounds and color areas. To fix issues with the Magic Wand tool, follow these steps:
- Select the Magic Wand tool from the toolbar or via the shortcut “W” key on the keyboard.
- Click on the desired area to select.
- Choose Select > Modify > Expand.
- A dialog box will open allowing you to set the pixel amount.
- Use the Pen tool or Curvature Pen tool, depending on your knowledge of them.
- Be sure to use Path mode in the options bar.
- With the selection active, try Select>Modify>Expand (or Contract) and set to a specific number of pixels.
- If the Magic Wand tool is active and set the tolerance to 20, you will get a selection pattern based on that tolerance setting.
- Leave anti-aliasing enabled with the Magic Wand to smooth out jagged selection edges.
- Adjust the Magic Wand tool in the Option bar by selecting Tolerance to change how much of the color areas are sampled.
- During the use of Fuzzy Selection, dragging the pointer downward or upward during the selection process can increase/decrease the threshold.
In summary, the Magic Wand Tool is an essential tool in Photoshop for enhancing selections and making independent edits. By mastering its settings and features, users can tackle even the most challenging projects.
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It seems like there are a couple of things going on here. One is that Photoshop uses UnPremultiplied, or Straight alpha for making masks. And the other is that you’re using a magic wand to select a single color on a transparent background. There is nothing to blend towards, as you would have if it was black-on-white., so of course you get a ragged edge. That’s because you’re not making a vector mask. If you turn off AA, and use Point Sample, then sampling from the vector or sampling from a vector merged with a solid makes identical masks.
Note that if you had started with a flattened image of the bird on a white background, and THEN used the Magic Wand tool (with its default settings), your mask would have been fine. So, the Magic Wand tool works as it was originally intended (and engineered) to work. It is NOT intended to work on layers with surrounding transparency. For layers with transparency, clicking on the layer thumbnail is the correct method.
I think they didn’t update the Magic Wand tool since decades Because computers were slow back then, people either worked with low resolution images most of the time to speed up the workflow and if they used higher res, photoshop automatically worked with lower res so the computer doesn’t slow down too much or crash while selecting with the wand tool
I was waiting for you to talk about the method, when the image is black and white (without a transparent background, it took me a while to notice that the problem you mentioned is about images with a transparent background), you can create an empty mask, copy the layer image, Alt+Click on the mask, pastes the image, Alt+Click to return, and it will have a mask based on the black and white image of the logo, that is 100% non-destructible.
You identify an ongoing issue with Magic Wand which has been mysteriously unchanged for 20+ years. Personally, I set up an Action on my F2 key years ago which I use regularly on any selection which is less than perfect. When the selection is active: Select > Contract 2, Select > Feather 2, Select > Invert, Delete > Delete. (Yes, surprisingly, the second Delete does improve the finish…). If you set this up as an Action it instantly smooths the edges. If you’re using a layer mask you can make up a variant of this (Ctrl F2 on my workstations) that effectively does the same Action non-destructively: the last part of the Action becomes Select > Invert > Edit > Fill with black. Depending on your image size, you can do the same Action with just a 1-pixel contract/feather/delete effect for lower resolution images. Once you have it working the way you like it, just save it as a keyboard shortcut. Ideally, practice generating your clipping paths with the pen tool and a tablet where possible, then you will quickly have perfect edges in the first place! JM.
I found you a while back (can’t remember exactly when, but somewhere around the first half of this year) and by now i have watched pretty much all of your articles. I have to say you’re really good at what you do, and an amazing teacher! I’ve really learned alot from you! Thank you for what you do; and i wish you a happy new year 😀