Master The Magic Wand Tool In Elements

Elements can do almost anything Photoshop CS3 can do, but Photoshop does give you and extra 10% more when it comes to those little gems for altering your photos. But, both bits of software come with the "Magic Wand Tool" or as one of my friends call it "Harry Potters Magic Wand Tool" don't ask me why because I have know idea.

Adjusting the contrast or colour balance of any of your photos or images can and is very easy, but if you only want to adjust the sky, lets say, brighten or darken it, or your landscape then this is when the "Magic Wand Tool" comes in. Basically the "Magic Wand Tool" selects pixels within a similar colour range, which enables you to apply a number of adjustments to one given area.

Lets quickly run through how you use the Magic Wand Tool in Elements 6:

First you start by opening your image up in full edit mode, next you need to select the Magic Wand Tool, you'll find this in your tools palette which is on the left handside of your screen, once this is open you need to then select the top bar and set your tolerance level to around 30. Next to tolerance box you'll see a tick box which say's "Contiguous" this must be ticked, so just put your mouse over the box and right click you mouse, you should now see the box ticked. The reason we are doing this is because we are telling the "Magic Wand Tool" to select the pixels of similar colour which are side by side, and not the colour which are outside the sky area.

Next you need to select an area of the sky or landscape from you image or photo, all you need to do here is just click it once, you will now see a running line which is dotted, this will now mark that selection. If you would like to select more of the sky just hold down the shift key and click the unselected areas.

Once you are happy with what you have selected you now need to open the Levels window and select Enhance > Adjust Lighting > Levels, next just drag the slider bar to the right, you'll notice that you will add more atmosphere to your sky which as the dotted line around it, and nothing else in you photo or image has been touched.

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