How to fill inside a selection when the inside is transparent

Report · Aug 05, 2018

I have a .png image which is a line drawing of a leaf. I want to fill the inside of leaf with a color. I would like the color not to be totally opaque in order to see the lines inside the leaf. I can select the outside border of the leaf but I simply cannot find the answer to how to create a fill of color inside the leaf (inside the selection). The problem seems to be that what I consider the "inside" of the leaf is transparent and so isn't part of the selection. I have searched and searched on-line to no avail for how to create that fill. I will be very grateful for any help!

Report · Aug 05, 2018

Here is one way:

Once you have made the selection, create a new layer above your leaf layer in darker blend mode.

You can then use the edit >> Fill selection command to fill with the desired color.

Tips:

- a selection is effective on the whole image, not only a layer. You can create a new layer while the selection is active

- you can use any of the blend modes in the group starting with darker.

- you can merge the color layer to the drawing one if you want.

Report · Aug 06, 2018

Another way:

With the selection active (marching ants), add a new color fill layer - Menu Layer >> New fill layer. In the dialog, choose your color and the darken blend mode.

Report · Aug 06, 2018

I really appreciate your help! But I simply can't get this to work. I followed your instructions exactly. What happens is that the outline of the leaf changes color but not the inside. Do I need to change the file type to something else? .jpg? I do know how to do a fill layer and I have used it on other images. Is there some other setting that I am missing here?

Report · Aug 06, 2018

susanb91429133 wrote
I really appreciate your help! But I simply can't get this to work. I followed your instructions exactly. What happens is that the outline of the leaf changes color but not the inside. Do I need to change the file type to something else? .jpg? I do know how to do a fill layer and I have used it on other images. Is there some other setting that I am missing here?

That means you have not selected the leaf, only its contour.

To select the leaf inside its contour, you have a slight problem. The usual way is to use the magic wand to select outside of the leaf, then inverse the selection.

But, the contour is not contiguous. You have to select and add each of the four pieces outside the leaf, then you inverse (menu Select >> Inverse).

If you use the magic wand to select the inside of the leaf (with 'contiguous' checked) that will ignore small parts, and you'll have to add them to the selection.

To select the outside with a single click of the magic wand, I suggest resizing the canvas very slightly, 101 % for instance.

Report · Aug 06, 2018

OMG! Thank you so much!! That worked!! I still don't really understand why selecting the contour and then doing the fill layer didn't work. The other thing that I don't understand is why when I did a save as to a .jpg file then I was completely unable to get the magic wand tool to select the edge of the leaf. It would only select the outside square of the whole image.

Report · Aug 06, 2018

susanb91429133 wrote
OMG! Thank you so much!! That worked!! I still don't really understand why selecting the contour and then doing the fill layer didn't work. The other thing that I don't understand is why when I did a save as to a .jpg file then I was completely unable to get the magic wand tool to select the edge of the leaf. It would only select the outside square of the whole image.

The magic wand selects pixels of a given color. If you select the black part of the contour (you need to zoom out to be precise), you'll select contiguous black pixels whether they are on a transparent (png) or white background. If you want to select the whole shape (frequent situation with shapes), It's generally best to select the outside of the shape and to invert that selection.

Report · Aug 06, 2018

Following Michel's instructions, first I used the Magnetic Lasso tool to select the outline of the leaf.

Then added a Solid Color fill layer, with the layer's blend mode of Darken (blend mode Multiply also gives the same result).

The advantage of using the fill layer is that you can later change the color by double-clicking it in the Layers Palette and selecting the new color.