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Participating Frequently
December 20, 2017
Answered

CC2018 - Magic Wand tool selection problems

  • December 20, 2017
  • 2 replies
  • 2580 views

When working on a transparent layer, the magic wand tool will select all non-transparent pixels, failing to distinguish between very opaque and nearly transparent pixels:

with a white background layer to better show the contrast between the opaque and nearly transparent pixels:

I've controlled for tolerance, selection size, etc. I've also gone through all the preferences that seem relevant but can't find a solution.

Anyone else had this issue or is there some setting I may have overlooked?

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

The Magic Wand is a color-based selection tool and those pixels are all black (albeit a light tint of black) so even a tolerance of 1 will pick up everything black. How about the Quick Selection tool?

~Barb

2 replies

Barb Binder
Community Expert
Barb BinderCommunity ExpertCorrect answer
Community Expert
December 20, 2017

The Magic Wand is a color-based selection tool and those pixels are all black (albeit a light tint of black) so even a tolerance of 1 will pick up everything black. How about the Quick Selection tool?

~Barb

~Barb at Rocky Mountain Training
Participating Frequently
December 20, 2017

ah - strange I'd never noticed this before.  thanks!

and yes, I can use the quick selection tool to select just the opaque pixels.  much appreciated.

John T Smith
Community Expert
Community Expert
December 20, 2017

Please post the name of the program you use so a Moderator may move this message to the specific forum

-A program would be Photoshop or Dreamweaver or Muse or Premiere Pro or ???

Participating Frequently
December 20, 2017

my bad - I'm using Photoshop CC 2018 ( v.19.0)

[Here is the list of all Adobe forums... https://forums.adobe.com/welcome]

[Moved from generic Cloud/Setup forum to the specific Program forum... Mod]

gener7
Community Expert
Community Expert
December 20, 2017

Have you tried increasing the Tolerance from 0 to 7, 10, or 14?

Gene