From the course: Photoshop CS5 One-on-One: Fundamentals

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The Magic Wand tool

The Magic Wand tool - Photoshop Tutorial

From the course: Photoshop CS5 One-on-One: Fundamentals

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The Magic Wand tool

We're going to start things off with the Magic Wand tool because it's a great jumping off point for learning how to use the automated selection tools inside Photoshop. I'm working inside the ManlySaw image.jpg file found inside the 08_selections folder. And I'm going to click and hold on this fourth slot here and switch to the Magic Wand. You'll often hear people generalize that the Magic Wand tool is no good anymore and basically the Quick Selection tool has replaced it. That it's the better automated selection tool. Now not only do I disagree with that, but also it misses the point. These are two very different tools in terms of how they work. The Quick Selection tool grows a selection out to incorporate edges, where the Magic Wand tool selects regions of luminance and/or color by virtue of the fact that it calculates selections in different color channels. So if you want to select a region of color or luminance inside of Photoshop, the Magic Wand tool is a great place to start. And…

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