Photoshop Mini Lesson #11

The BACKGROUND ERASER TOOL

Learn a new tool today! Here's a new way to do something you usually do with the magic wand! Once you get the hang of this, the Background Eraser Tool will make your job considerably easier! But, it takes a little practice, to get the hang of it.

PART I: Learning How To Use The Tool

STEP ONE: Launch Photoshop and go to the Photos To Use folder. Open Poseidon's Temple, Greece (shown at right).

STEP TWO: Go to the Tool Bar and find the eraser. Hold the mouse button down so that you can see the nested tools beneath it. Find The Background Eraser Tool.

STEP THREE: At the top of the screen, made sure your mode is contiguous, and your tolerance about 50%. (Tolerance may need to change, in other situations!)

STEP FOUR: Set your brush size fairly large (suggest 100 pixels).

STEP FIVE: Now, place your eraser tool over the sky. Notice the small crosshairs in the center. Click one time. It should clear that area! Now, move your mouse so that the crosshairs are again in the blue space, near the pillars. Click again.

STEP SIX: Keep going, until you clear all the sky. Adjust the tolerance lower, so that you don't pick up anything like water or mountains. (Note: sometimes there is a little residue that needs to be cleaned up!). Clear the entire sky, including between the collumns.

STEP SEVEN: Go to the NOAA site and find a storm sky! Look for one that will work with your photo...choose one that is wild and dramatic! (Try the COLLECTIONS link at the top> National Storm Laboratories>Tornadoes, Lightning, Hurricanes, etc.) DRAG your storm photo to the desktop and open it into Photoshop. HINT! You may need to change your IMAGE mode to RGB. After it's in Photoshop, go to IMAGE: mode: RGB.

STEP EIGHT: DRAG the storm photo to the Poseidon's Temple photo. Next, drag the storm photo layer BELOW the Poseidon's Temple layer. Your storm should now be visible where the sky was!

STEP EIGHT: Adjust and scale your photo until it fills the sky behind the columns!

Adjust the lighting in your photo if necessary to reflect your storm sky! (Try Curves).

STEP NINE: Take a screen shot and save as YLNIeraser. Be prepared to send it to the dropbox on Monday!

 

Here's a video demonstrating this tool! Press the Full Screen button at bottom right to see it larger. Use the Esc key on your keyboard to stop.

 

Put the crosshairs in the color (blue sky) you want to erase and click...then go to another space and click. Remember that the crosshairs are the key!