Also, we can use the Photoshop keyboard shortcut W to automatically equip ourselves with this tool.
To use this tool we only have to click on the part of the image that we want to select. Whether it’s a part of the sky, a tree, a sign, a car… whatever. We must bear in mind that the greater the color change between the object and the rest of the elements, the more effective the wand will be when selecting.
Doing click on the object We will automatically see how all of this is selected. And the more similar the tonality of this, the better it will be selected. We can even select different points of the image by holding down the shift key and successively clicking on the elements that we want to mark.
Now we can do what we want. For example, we may remove such content, change its color, or apply other filters or effects to it. That already depends on our imagination. And our advanced knowledge of retouching with Photoshop.
Advanced Photoshop Magic Wand Features
When there is a wide variety of tones, contrasts and colors, and they are also similar, using this tool becomes quite complicated. As we can see, although the wand differentiates well between red and white, when we try to select the neck of the signal, things change.
To refine the selection, at the top we will find a series of additional options that allow us to better control the behavior of the magic wand.
The most interesting options Magic wand are:
- Sample size: The smaller it is, the more accurate the selection will be. To help us in precision, we must do zoom on image holding down the Alt key and moving the mouse wheel up if we want to zoom in or down if we want to zoom out of the image.
- Tolerance: The higher this value is, the more similar shades and colors it will select. The smaller it is, the more accurate the wand will be when selecting the key colors. As with the sample size, if we want to be as precise as possible, we must zoom in on the image and select the exact hue and modify the value of this option until we find the one that suits our needs.
- Smooth: softens the selection of the edges to make editing much more professional, establishing a kind of blur both on the edge of the object that we have selected (either to cut or replace the color) and on the image where the selected object was located with this tool.
- Adjacent: we choose if we want it to only sample contiguous pixels or not.
By adjusting, for example, the tolerance of the wand we will be able to select colors and objects much more precisely. For example, by reducing the tolerance to 15 we can see that the tool is now much more precise when selecting the signal post.
Using the Magic Wand Tool with Layers
Using layers is a great way to make sure that we’re not accidentally editing anything from the part of the original image that we want to save. That is why, if we are going to make use of important editing changes with the Magic Wand tool, we must duplicate the layers previously, in this way we safeguard the original image avoiding unwanted modifications. Thus, we will always keep an unedited version of the image and it allows us to merge the two versions of the image if necessary.
To do this, once we have added the photo, we go to the Layers section at the bottom right. From here we are going to drag the current image onto the button Create a new layer. We will recognize this by having the shape of a plus sign or a sticky note and we find them located at the bottom of the screen, between Delete layer and Create a new group.
Once the button has been pressed, we have added the photo, we will see how a layer has been created that we will easily locate by wearing the tag of Copy. Now we must hide original imagel by clicking the eye icon to the left of it, which will change the eye to a square.
We can now click on the new layer to select it and be able to make the selection and editing changes that we consider appropriate with the Magic Wand. We can use the eye icons to hide and show the layers to our liking, which will help us, for example, to use the originals as a reference.
The quick selection tool
If the wand does not finish convincing us or we do not manage to master it, then we can give a chance to the other function that Photoshop offers us: the quick selection tool. And it is necessary to take into account that the magic wand, specifically the use of it, is somewhat delicate. It is true that its usefulness, once we get used to its use, is impressive, but there are users who do not have the necessary patience. It may also be the case that the need is not for such precision.
That is why, as we mentioned, we can use the so-called Quick Selection Tool. As its own name indicates, this will be of great help when carrying out selections in the imagebut in a much more fluid way, while imprecise, by the way.
To begin with, we will tell you that this tool is much rougher and less imprecise than the wand we have seen before. In the same way we can activate it using the W key, where here we will have the possibility to choose the size of the brush and click on the part of the image that we want.
How Photoshop’s Quick Selection Tool works
The main difference in this case is that, when placing the aforementioned Quick Selection tool on a certain section of the photo, it automatically selects everything that it thinks has approximately the same tonality surrounding the marked point. As you can imagine, this allows us, with a single mouse click or two, to select a certain area of the image much more quickly.
In the same way, the tool as such allows us to drag the brush that we have selected at the beginning, with the mouse button pressed, or click on other elements, to automatically add them to the list. selection. Of course, something that we must take into account here is that we do not have an adjustable tolerance function. But in the event that we are users who are not too experienced in the program, it will work for us in most cases. This is mainly because this is a Photoshop functionality cruder, but designed to fairly accurately identify objects and distinguish one from another.
Next, once we have achieved that the selection with this tool is what we need, for example, we can press the Ctrl key in order to be able to separate the selection as such from the rest. At that time we can create another image with the same or that is part of a more complex project. For all the aforementioned, if we manage to master the magic wand, or failing that, quick selection toolour work with Photoshop will be much more professional and fast.
Object selection tool: the best of AI
Adobe is betting more and more on Artificial Intelligence. For this reason, the latest versions of the Adobe suite have another selection tool within the same section of the magic wand: object selection.
This tool makes use of Sensei, Adobe’s Artificial Intelligence, to detect the object that we indicate and select it automatically. This is very useful, especially for complex photos where the wand or quick selection does not work well.
By selecting this option we can see options similar to those of the other tools. The one that interests us the most is the selection mode, being able to choose if we want it to be a rectangle or a loop. The more we focus on the object, the more precise the selection will be.
We simply have to click on the image, and drag to cover the object that we want to select. When you drop, Adobe Photoshop will automatically select that object with great precision. In case there is any part left unselected, or the selection goes outside the object, we can use the other tools to subtract those parts.
How to Automatically Select People in Photoshop
As we have commented in the previous section, Adobe is betting a lot on artificial intelligence and every year, new functions are introduced that use this technology to automate some of the functions of Photoshop, in addition to the rest of the applications available through Adobe Creative Cloud. When selecting people in an image, we can use the magic wand tool, although we will be forced to touch up the edges to add or remove the areas that this tool has contemplated. We can also use the selection tool manually, although we are going to face very similar results. The best way to select people automatically is by using the function available in Photoshop.
Photoshop includes a function handles spot the person or people who are in an image, as long as they are well lit, since the application cannot work miracles with low-quality and low-resolution images. This Photoshop tool is available in the Selection – Subject menu. Once we have selected this option, the application will take a few seconds to recognize the people in the foreground of the image and it will select them.
If our intention is to blur the background, then we go to the same menu and click on Invest to move the selection to the background of the image while keeping the subject unselected. Finally, we go to the Filters section and select blur – Gaussian and set the blur level we want to use.
As we can see in the images above, the process to select people, invert the selection and blur the background is a process that we can do in less than 10 seconds.
At this point it is worth noting that something very similar to this function that we have just mentioned, we can do directly with the skies that make up our loaded images. With this, what we want to tell you is that we have the possibility of the program detecting this component of any image with just pressing a predetermined option.
Specifically, we will find this in the menu Selection / Sky so that Photoshop’s artificial intelligence will kick in and make a selection of this element on its own. On certain occasions marking the sky of any image in the form of a landscape can become a real ordeal. However, thanks to this functionality we can save a good amount of time and effort.