Magic wand tool does nothing

[melvynw31626612]

Hi

I am using the latest Photoshop and I am trying to use the magic wand tool. It selects but when I press delete it offers me a range of things because it seems to thing I want to use Fill.  What happened to delete? Somehow it is also not doing anything in a completely different way after I have put in a few layers.  No matter what layer I have selected, the wand performs a selection and then has no fundtionality at all. Still won't delete or anything else.  

Thanks

Melvyn

[c.pfaffenbichler]

Could you please post a screenshot taken at View > 100% with the pertinent Panels (Layers, Channels, Options Bar, …) visible? 

What kind of Layer is selected, what are the Tool’s settings, …? 

[melvynw31626612]

[c.pfaffenbichler]

You have the Background Layer selected, proper deleting is not possible on that, therefore the Fill doialog. 

[c.pfaffenbichler]

cmd-delete fills with the Background Color, in case that’s what you want to achieve. 

Otherwise change the Background Layer to a regular Layer befor deleting … or maybe even better use a Layer Mask on it. 

[melvynw31626612]

Thanks.  I'm impressed you saw enough of that screen grab to diagnose the situation. Another issue was when I had several layers I still couldn't delete. Every single layer would allow me to select but not delete. When I had several layers the background layer was allowing me to select but when I hit delete was just doing nothing instead of trying to fill.

[c.pfaffenbichler]

When dragging the screenshot into Photoshop it appears to be fine. 

»Every single layer would allow me to select but not delete.«

Please post a screenshot of that situation. 

Were multiple Layers selected, was the selected Layer locked, …? 

[melvynw31626612]

To be honest it all got very confusing once I tried to put in an elipse. All sorts of weird stuff started happening. I'll have to go back and have a look at it.  Thank you for your time.  I'll crack on now.  This has been very useful.  

[c.pfaffenbichler]

Like I mentioned using Layer Masks (on Groups that can contain several Layers of necessary) might be useful. 

[melvynw31626612]

Thank you for replying.  I have attached a screen grab.  This is what happens when I press delete.  Any help would be great at this point.

[melvynw31626612]

I'll try to upload a better screen grab. The upload system is like something out of Kafka. 

[melvynw31626612]

[melvynw31626612]

I can see now that as soon as I hit delete it selects the eye droper tool.  

[melvynw31626612]

I have found that I can go to Edit/Cut or Clear and that works.  I have got so used to being able to just hit delete, I forgot there are other ways of doing it. It would be great if delete deleted things though, like it did before. 

Thanks

[c.pfaffenbichler]

»What happened to delete?«

What do you mean? Could you be hitting shift-delete? 

[melvynw31626612]

Hi.  

Thank you for getting back to me.  No I am just hitting delete. 

Cheers.

[melvynw31626612]

The image I have uploaded seems to be really small despite me uploading it on the largest setting.  Is this normal?

[JJMack]

This site resizes image that you post down in size. Make screen captures unreadable. That is why I post part of screen captures when I can fit what I want to show on part of my display.

If you delete a selection on a background layer the area need to be filled with a color I would think Photoshop would use the current background swatch color. It seem like your Photoshop is switching to fill to give you the opportunity to pick the color or choose content aware fill or pattern fill.

If you unlock the background layer (convert to a normal layer) delete will work.

[melvynw31626612]

OK.  Thanks.  I will remember that in future.  Weird that a company specialising in high quality image manipulation makes it as diffiult as possible to upload a decent image.  

Thank you for your help. 

[JohanElzenga]

You are trying to delete a selection of the background layer. The background layer does not support transparency, so that is why Fill comes up.

[melvynw31626612]

I'm pretty sure I've done this before on many occassions in previous versions. 

[c.pfaffenbichler]

Feel free to install one of the obsolete Photoshop CC versions and try … 

[melvynw31626612]

Thanks.

[Omdaa]

Solution is : Unlock the background layer!