Magic Eraser Tool

Magic Eraser Tool

Learn how to use the Magic Eraser Tool in Photoshop.

When to use

Using the Magic Eraser Tool works best when you have large areas of a single color that you want to remove from an image.

Instructions

Getting Started with the Magic Eraser Tool

• Begin by opening one of the photos from the resources folder and making a copy of the Background layer.
• Turn the visibility of the original layer off so you only see the duplicate layer on top. 
• With this tool we don't need to brush - we can simply click once and we will be able to remove large blocks of color. 
• Click a few times on the background to remove large areas of the sky.
• You may notice that the Magic Eraser Tool leaves some messy edges behind.
• In order to fix this we will want to combine it with one of the other Eraser tools.

Background Eraser Tool

• Just like we did in the previous lesson, let's use the Background Eraser Tool to go over any of the edges that were left behind after we used the Magic Eraser Tool.
• These tools often work best when combined together, but it can be a great way to quickly and easily remove backgrounds or parts of an image.

Hints & tips

• The Eraser Tools can be a fast and dirty way to remove backgrounds or part of an image, but keep in mind that they are all 'destructive' methods for modifying an image because it permanently removes the pixels and data.
• Although the Magic Eraser Tool gives a quick way to remove a background, it works best when combined with one of the other tools such as the Background Eraser.