"Brush mode" for Magic Wand tool

[nikolaya39889436]

I propose a new toggleable mode for the Magic Wand tool that would add some of the functionalities of the brush tool:

-Pixels will only be affected within the circle of the brush (in other words, the magic wand will have an adjustable range/size it affects).

-This functionality could further be expanded by allowing the brush to be softened, or even have custom brush shapes, pressure sensitivity, opacity, flow, etc. This would result in something similar to painting with such a brush in quick mask mode, while still having the Magic Wand's tolerance setting in effect.

-In this mode the magic wand will be draggable (the same way you would draw with a brush) and the brush's "spacing" setting will determine how often a new selection is made with the magic wand and added/subtracted (depending on current setting or key modifiers) to the existing selection. A low setting will make selections more often, but could be laggier.

How this can be useful:

If you have a bright and a dark object on the same white background, you can use this mode to refine the selection around the dark object with the magic wand without affecting the selection near the bright object. This situation is more common than it sounds - for example a white shirt and dark jeans on a white background. With the current magic wand, I can't use it to select the jeans without deselecting parts of the shirt as well. Also the "dragging" functionality would be hugely helpful when you have your tolerance set to a small value and have to click repeatedly to get all the nuances of the background - now you would just drag it around a bit and have a good selection, without worrying about affecting other parts of the image.

[Kevin Stohlmeyer]

@nikolaya39889436 How is this different from the current Quick Selection tool?

[nikolaya39889436]

@Kevin Stohlmeyerbecause it has the functionality of the Magic Wand built in (selecting only color ranges close to what your cursor is over) and because it doesn't require you to enter quick selection mode. It'll basically be Magic Wand on steroids.

[Kevin Stohlmeyer]

Hi @nikolaya39889436 Im not talking about Quick Mask mode - this is the Quick Selection Tool:

https://helpx.adobe.com/photoshop/how-to/use-quick-selection-tool.html

Here is what it already does based on your suggestion:

• brush based selection tool 
• select based on contrast and color.
• Pixels will only be affected within the circle of the brush
• adjustable range/size
• brush to be softened, or even have custom brush shapes
• draggable (the same way you would draw with a brush)
• spacing setting will determine how often a new selection is made
• added/subtracted (depending on current setting or key modifiers) to the existing selection

[nikolaya39889436]

@Kevin Stohlmeyersorry for the confusion.

Alas the quick selection tool, as its name implies, is only suitable for quick selections where quality is not essential. It produces blurry, blocky selections, especially where colors are close in lightness. It is also not restrained by its brush size, selecting freely what it considers to be the same object, until the user deselects a part of it, and it deselects almist everything, going back and forth.

My proposal is to build functionality ontop of the already superior and more precise Magic wand tool. The main point is that it will combine the functionality of the maguc wand with a way to "contain" it from spreading too far and ruining previously refined parts of the selection. Dragging would help with the current need to spam the tool repeatedly. The rest is icing in the cake. The star of the show is that it will pcik up its color from the center of the brush abd spread it as far as that color goes, or the edge of the brush, whichever comes first. I believe this will help tremendously with the usability of the tool.