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- How the Magic Eraser tool works and when you should use it
- The Magic Eraser’s advantages over other, similar Photoshop tools
- Step-by-step guidelines on how to use the Magic Eraser tool
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An Introduction to the Magic Eraser Tool
Anytime you need to erase a basic solid-colored background from an image in Photoshop, the first tool you should consider using is the Magic Eraser tool. Though many Photoshop users have never heard of it, let alone used it, the Magic Eraser can erase basic backgrounds more quickly than any other Photoshop tool.
The Main Uses of the Magic Eraser Tool
The Magic Eraser tool makes it easy to remove the background from an image but with one important catch—the tool works best on backgrounds that contain only one main color. For instance, though the Magic Eraser might erase a clear blue-sky background with a single click, it won’t work as well on a sunset sky, in which many colors make up the background. Here are three of the most common uses of the Magic Eraser tool:
- Deleting backgrounds: The Magic Eraser tool makes it easy to delete the background of an image. For instance, if you’re taking product shots or portraits against a seamless white background (as is often done in commercial and portrait photography), you can erase the white backgrounds with the Magic Eraser tool and then change them to black or any other color background you prefer.
- Replacing skies: Often you’ll work on photos that have great foreground content but dull background content, such as a flat gray sky or a cloudless blue sky. To solve the problem, you might want to replace the sky with a sky imported from another image. The Magic Eraser tool makes it easy to eliminate the current sky in preparation for importing a new one.
- Deleting solid-colored objects: The Magic Eraser tool isn’t just for backgrounds— you can also use it to erase any objects in your images that are composed mainly of one color. For instance, if your image contains a bunch of red balloons that you’d like to remove, the Magic Eraser can erase them in just a few clicks.
How the Magic Eraser Tool Works
The Magic Eraser tool works by finding pixels in an image (or layer) that are similar in color to an initial pixel you click, referred to as the reference point in this guide. Here’s a step-by-step breakdown of how the Magic Eraser tool works:
- With the Magic Eraser tool selected in the Tools palette, click on a pixel in the background. The pixel you click serves as the tool’s reference point in step 2.
- The tool finds pixels throughout the background that are similar in color to the reference point and makes those pixels transparent.
Pixel Transparency and the Magic Eraser Tool
The Magic Eraser tool doesn’t actually erase, or remove, pixels—it converts them to transparent pixels, which are pixels with no color. By default, Photoshop allows all pixels in an image to be converted to transparent pixels. However, Photoshop also lets you lock the transparency of pixels in a layer, which prevents the Magic Eraser tool from converting—and therefore erasing—those pixels. If you’re working in a layer with locked transparency (explained in more detail later in this guide), the Magic Eraser converts all similar pixels to the current background color, rather than making them transparent.
The Advantages of the Magic Eraser Tool
You can use several Photoshop tools besides the Magic Eraser tool to erase an image’s background. The two tools that are used most often in place of the Magic Eraser tool are the Magic Wand tool and the Background Eraser tool. Here’s how they compare to the Magic Eraser tool.
- Magic Wand tool: The Magic Wand makes it easy to select parts of an image that contain similarly colored pixels with just one click. But once you select those areas, you then need to delete them, which adds another step to the process. The Magic Eraser tool works just like the Magic Wand tool, but it does the additional deleting step for you automatically.
- Background Eraser tool: The Background Eraser works by distinguishing between the color of the pixels in the main content of the image and the colors in the background. For instance, if you wanted to eliminate the sky in a photo of a tree, the Background Eraser tool would analyze the main colors in the tree, the main colors in the sky, and then erase only those colors that make up the sky. Though the Background eraser tool is very helpful in removing the background from images with intricate foregrounds, it’s often slower than using the Magic Eraser tool if you just want to erase a basic background.
How to Access the Magic Eraser Tool
The Magic Eraser tool is located in Photoshop’s Tools palette in the same button that houses the standard Eraser tool and the Background Eraser tool. Its icon, 
, is a tiny eraser with a yellow star in the top left corner. If you don’t see the Magic Eraser tool’s icon in the Tools palette, follow these steps to find it:
, is a tiny eraser with a yellow star in the top left corner. If you don’t see the Magic Eraser tool’s icon in the Tools palette, follow these steps to find it:- Click and hold on the icon of the Eraser tool
or the Background Eraser tool 
. - A submenu will appear to the right in which you can select the Magic Eraser tool. (Alternatively, you can press Shift+E repeatedly to cycle through the three tools that share the Magic Eraser tool’s spot in the Tools Palette.)
The Magic Eraser Toolbar
Once you select the Magic Eraser tool, the Magic Eraser toolbar will appear just under the main Photoshop toolbar at the top of your screen.
The Magic Eraser toolbar contains several options and features unique to the Magic Eraser tool, all of which are explained later in this guide.
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