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clareb32062298
Participant
July 27, 2017
Answered

why does the magic eraser tool delete everything?

  • July 27, 2017
  • 2 replies
  • 6409 views

I'm having such a nightmare with photoshop at the moment, resisting the urge to throw my laptop out the window...

I learnt photoshop a few years ago and was fairly proficient but have come back to it after a year or 2 and with this new version I don't have a clue what i'm doing.

I'm trying to use the background eraser on a few images but when I click the magic eraser it just deletes everything. The background eraser tool turns all the areas I erase into rectangles and the find edges option just doesnt work at all.

I've read about rasterizing etc, dont have a clue what I means but I tried that as well as the smart object thing but it just deletes the entire image.

I just want to delete the background of this but it wont even let me do it by hand

This topic has been closed for replies.
Correct answer Barb Binder

The Magic Eraser is like the Magic Wand—it's a color-based tool, so you have to watch the Tolerance value. A lower value is less tolerant of a color-change. The default 32 is way to high for the background of your image—that's why it's eating away at the interior light colors. Try 10, and just keep clicking.

A better—but still good for beginners—approach is to use the Quick Select tool. Drag over what you want to keep until you get a nice smooth boundary around both tickets. Keep an eye on the text counters (the enclosed spaces inside a letter like a O or an dP). Then use Layer > New > Layer Via Copy to jump the tickets to a new layer, and hide the original layer.

At some point you will want to explore Select and Mask, which is a non-destructive way to refine the edge of the tickets to get exactly what you need.

2 replies

Barb Binder
Community Expert
Barb BinderCommunity ExpertCorrect answer
Community Expert
July 27, 2017

The Magic Eraser is like the Magic Wand—it's a color-based tool, so you have to watch the Tolerance value. A lower value is less tolerant of a color-change. The default 32 is way to high for the background of your image—that's why it's eating away at the interior light colors. Try 10, and just keep clicking.

A better—but still good for beginners—approach is to use the Quick Select tool. Drag over what you want to keep until you get a nice smooth boundary around both tickets. Keep an eye on the text counters (the enclosed spaces inside a letter like a O or an dP). Then use Layer > New > Layer Via Copy to jump the tickets to a new layer, and hide the original layer.

At some point you will want to explore Select and Mask, which is a non-destructive way to refine the edge of the tickets to get exactly what you need.

~Barb at Rocky Mountain Training
Derek Cross
Community Expert
Derek CrossCommunity Expert
Community Expert
July 27, 2017

There are lots of ways of doing this. Try the Quick Selection tool or the Magic Wand tool. Also when you get a mo learn to use these tools non-destructively.

Lynda.com have excellent Photoshop online video tutorials and you can get a free 30-day trial.

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