Photoshop Magic Wand Tool

Magic Wand Tool (shortcut W ) is used to make selection on the image. Unlike Marquee Tool and Lasso Tool where we dragged and drew the selection lines, in Magic Wand Tool we just click the selection and the selected area is based on the tolerance value given. Technically speaking, magic wand tool selects the area covered by a color where the click is made. The decision of which color to include and which to exclude depends upon the tolerance value assigned before clicking. Lets do it practically. Save the image below and fire it up in Photoshop.

With Magic Wand Tool selected (press W) give a Tolerance value of 50 in the Options Box. Make sure that the Anti-alias option is checked on. Now click anywhere on the sky of the image. If everything's right, the result should be like the one below:

So you can see the marching ants around the required selection area. Did you notice we missed an area between the man's legs? let's select that too. If you've read the Marquee Tool's "Add to Selection" option, you'd do this in a snap, if not, with the Magic Wand Tool selected, press shift key and click on the area between his legs.

Now we've selected the sky which is in background of the man standing. Let's do something interesting. With the area selected, go to Select >> Feather (shortcut Alt+Ctrl+D) and give a feather value of 2. Click on Brush Tool (shortcut B) and select some color in the color box's foreground stack. It's black by default, click on it to chose colur. I picked up something orangy.

Now paint with the brush tool (B) and don't worry while painting as only the selected area will be painted. Don't leave any area unpainted like I did below.

Now we'll paint the floor, with the magic wand tool selected click on the floor (don't shift + click since we only need the floor now) When it's selected give the feather value 2 like you did earlier. Now again select a color, I chose blue. Paint it on the selected floor area. Press Ctrl+D My final output is as follows:

Notice the 4 buttons in the Options Bar when Magic Wand Tool is selected. They are New Selection, Add to Selection, Subtract from Selection and Intersect with Selection. I explained their usage in Marquee Tools page. So this is how and why the Magic Wand Tool is used.