TOOL SCHOOL MAGIC WAND OPTIONS EXPLAINED

Take a closer look at the toolbar options for Photoshop’s powerful Magic Wand tool

01 THE MAGIC WAND TOOL

The Magic Wand is found in the Tools panel alongside the Quick Selection Tool and (in Photoshop CC 2020) the Object Selection Tool. Click with the tool over part of the image, and it will look for pixels that are similar to the point you clicked on. You can set a sample size in the dropdown at the top. Point Sample uses a single pixel, while the other options let you sample from a wider area.

02 ADD, SUBTRACT, INTERSECT

Like any selection tool in Photoshop, you have the option to Add, Subtract or Intersect with your initial selection. Add is especially useful with the Magic Wand: often you need a few goes to complete the selection. It’s better to set Tolerance low and click a few times than to set it too high, then have to backtrack. Hold Shift and click to Add, Alt to Subtract, and Shift+alt to Intersect.

03 SELECT AND MASK

It’s always a good idea to run an intricate selection through the Select And Mask command. Within the command, you can use the Quick Selection tool to add to or subtract from the initial selection, then use the Radius setting to improve the edge. Once done, you can set Output to Layer Mask to convert your selection to a mask, thereby hiding the backdrop in a non-destructive way.

04 TOLERANCE

This setting lets you determine how similar pixels can be to the sample point to be included in your selection. Set Tolerance to 1, and only pixels that have the exact same RGB value as the sample point will be included. Set it to 100, and the range of pixels becomes much wider. Experimenting is key to getting the best result. Here, a setting of 30 lets us target the backdrop without picking up the details in the tree.

05 CONTIGUOUS

The Contiguous box has a big impact on how the Magic Wand works. With it ticked, the selection is limited only to pixels that are connected to the point first clicked on. This makes it useful if you want to isolate a uniform block or shape, but less so with an image like this. By keeping Contiguous ticked here, we tell the tool to look image wide for similar pixels, allowing it to pick up all the isolated gaps between the leaves.

06 SELECT SUBJECT

This command employs AI to recognize the subject and isolate it for you. It’s not always perfect, but it’s a useful starting point for selections. We can begin by using the tool to select the tree for us, then perfect the selection by using the Magic Wand to seek out all the gaps between the leaves that have been missed. If you need to quickly lock on to an object, Select Subject is a good place to begin.