6. The Tools in the Toolbox / 6.3 Tools for Image Layers

6.3.5 The Wand/the Auto Mask

The wand is used for automatically masking image areas, which have a similar color. As a result you get a lasso.

In the settings you can adjust the Tolerance with a slider. The higher you choose the tolerance, the more permissive is PhotoLine on creating the lasso. This tolerance can be adjusted by clicking and dragging inside the document. While doing that the corresponding result will be marked with blue color. Please note, that this preview doesn't respect the setting of Fill Holes (see below).

Soft Edge controls the sharpness of the newly created lasso.

Fill Holes makes it easy to create a homogenous lasso, which doesn’t have small or large holes. But pay attention: Fill Holes fills all holes, even the wanted. If you want to mask - for example - the letter "o", you must not activate Fill Holes.

If Only Contiguous Areas is turned on, all selected areas have to be connected. If it is turned off, the Auto Mask works similar to Select Colors (see chapter 7.6.9).

You use the wand by simply clicking. If you hold Shift, the existing Lasso will be expanded. If you hold Ctrl (Windows) or Command (macOS) the lasso will be reduced.