Removing various shades of white with magic wand??

RM
Posted By
Ryan_Matthews
Jun 21, 2004
Views
672
Replies
3
Status
Closed
hi guys.

Many times, I’ll receive images I need to edit which contain white backgrounds and I often have to chop out this white background to work on the image itself.

The problem though is that although this background is white, there are dozens of ever so slightly different white variations throughout the background making it impossible to simply select the magic wand tool, click the background, and delete it.

Is there any way to make the magic wand tool act not so picky? In other words, when I click on a white background, it selects the entire background even if some of the pixels are shaded 1 or 2 degrees whiter than the one next to them?

thanks in advance.

-Ryan

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TI
Thomas_Ireland
Jun 21, 2004
Ryan,

Just change the tolerance of the magic wand. This setting is listed across the top of the PS window. A lower tolerance selects shade of colors that are closer, whereas a higher tolerance selects colors that are not so similar.

Hope this helps,

Tom Ireland
PS
Phil_Scarsbrook
Jun 21, 2004
In addition to what Thomas said, you can also hold down the shift key and click on multiple areas of the background and each click will be added to your selection.
P
Phosphor
Jun 21, 2004
Throw a levels adjustment layer on top of your image. move the Middle Levels slider toward the left. This should bring up all the less-than-fully-white shades closer to full on white. NOW make your selection.

Save the selection as a new Channel Mask, in case you want to refine it.

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