Help neede with Paint bucket

CS
Posted By
charles_s_corker
Jul 24, 2004
Views
1102
Replies
11
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Closed
I am using PSCS and today I used the magic wand to select areas of a photo, using the shift key to add more areas and then tried to fill the selection with white using the paint bucket. Only small, aooarently ranom areas filled and I had to repeatedly click in different areas to fill the whole selection, Sometimes only a few pisels seem to be filled.
What am I doing wrong
Many thanks for any advice
Charles

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P
Phosphor
Jul 24, 2004
Screw the paint bucket.

Once you have your selections active, use "Option + delete" to fill with your present foreground color; "Command + delete" to fill with your present background color.

Obviously, one of those must be White.

Tapping the "D" key on your keyboard will return your background and foreground colors to their default White and Black. Tapping the "X" will switch the two colors back and forth.
BG
barry_gray
Jul 24, 2004
Check the options bar at top- do you have "contiguous" checked? uncheck. Phos’s is the quickest.
CS
charles_s_corker
Jul 24, 2004
Thank you for your prompt and succinct response. I will do as you suggest and screw the paint bucket, and use Phophor’s method.
Still don’t know why the paint bucket does not work but will not spend time worrying about it Charles
EH
Ed_Hannigan
Jul 24, 2004
Charles,

The Paint Bucket does not fill selections; it fills areas either contiguous or non-contiguous based on their color. The selection edges have nothing to do with it except that it won’t fill anything outside the selection.
BG
barry_gray
Jul 25, 2004
Ed,
PB most suredly does fill a selection.
And "contiguous" does indeed work within the selected area only, and therefore, probably Charles’ confusion.
EH
Ed_Hannigan
Jul 25, 2004
From the Photoshop Help file:

"The paint bucket tool fills adjacent pixels that are similar in color value to the pixels you click.

….

To use the paint bucket tool:

1. Specify a foreground color. (See Choosing foreground and background colors.)
2. Select the paint bucket tool .
3. (Photoshop) Specify whether to fill the selection with the foreground color or with a pattern. (See Filling and stroking selections and layers.)
4. Specify a blending mode and opacity for the paint. (See Setting options for painting and editing tools.)
5. Enter the tolerance for the fill.

The tolerance defines how similar in color a pixel must be to be filled. Values can range from 0 to 255. A low tolerance fills pixels within a range of color values very similar to the pixel you click. A high tolerance fills pixels within a broader range.
6. To smooth the edges of the filled selection, select Anti-aliased. (See Softening the edges of a selection.)
7. To fill only pixels contiguous to the one you click, select Contiguous; leave unselected to fill all similar pixels in the image.
8. To fill pixels based on the merged color data from all visible layers, select All Layers. (See Sampling from layers.)
9. Click the part of the image you want to fill. All specified pixels within the specified tolerance are filled with the foreground color or pattern.

If you’re working on a layer and don’t want to fill transparent areas, make sure that the layer’s transparency is locked in the Layers palette. (See Locking layers.)"

As I said, whether Contiguous is checked or not, PB does not affect anything outside the selection edges. But the area it fills is not dependent on the Magic Wand or any other current selection. Try it.

If you have a high tolerance set on your Magic Wand and a low tolerance set on your Paint Bucket the Paint Bucket will not fill to the edges of the selection, which I think is what Charles is trying to do. It will only fill the pixels of similar color as usual. The Paint Bucket is in essence making its own selection.
BG
barry_gray
Jul 25, 2004
Now I’m cornfused "PB does not affect anything outside the selection edges"> is not that what I said?
" But the area it fills is not dependent on the Magic Wand or any other current selection" > a contradiction? of course it is.

BTW, The PB set to "contig" is very useful for fine tuning masks and any other task where you’d use the MW then fill with a color. Saves a step no?
BG
barry_gray
Jul 25, 2004
And I still maintain that "contiguous" was Charles problem, reguardless of the fact that Phos had the faster/better way once the selection was made. Perhaps if he had used the PB- contig. instead of the Wand/Fill he would have saved a step.
EH
Ed_Hannigan
Jul 25, 2004
I was only reiterating what I said in my first post:

"…except that it won’t fill anything outside the selection." I got the sense you thought I felt otherwise.

But there is no contradiction. The selection edges that exist from using the Magic Wand or any other selection tool do not determine what pixels the PB will affect, except that no pixels outside that selection boundary will be affected. The PB may well fill some of the pixels inside that selection and not others. The PB does not just fill up the selected area the way Option-Delete does. Right? I think Charles was expecting that it would.

Reread his original post and you may decide that I am right.
CS
charles_s_corker
Jul 25, 2004
Thanks everyone for your replies. At first read I was somewhat confused bt rereading them I think I understand now the foibles of the Paint bucket. It is more complex thanone would have thought and I will stick to the alternatives suggested above except for special occasions where its properties cold be useful
Charles
AS
Ann_Shelbourne
Jul 25, 2004
The Paint Bucket works in a similar way to the Magic Wand in that it only fills (using your foreground color) pixels of the same color as the one that you click on.

However, you can narrow, or widen, its range of sensitivity by changing its "Tolerance" setting (between 1 and 255).

And, as Ed explained, the Paint Bucket will not fill any pixels which lie outside a Selection.

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