Aviary - Forums

Sticky: What is the best way to select something? 6 replies

copper posted 1 year ago

What is the best way to select something. So that you can get really accurate selections. Also how does meowza do his selections where you can see the mask. (See the flying cars "video")

meowza posted 1 year ago

For single coloured or generally flat backgrounds, the Magic Wand gets the job done. Just like Avi shows here: http://a.viary.com/thread?tid=257

You could also use the Magic Wand for un-like colors too.
"How?", you may ask!
Well, it's simple. You trick the wand!

I did a lot of that in the car videos.
Here's the basic process:

On a new layer, I used the Elipse Tool to draw in a circle roughly the size of the tire, for example.

I'd lower the opacity to like 60% (so I can see the background well enough).
Then using the Distort Tool, I'll reshape the circle I drew into the exact shape of the tire.

Then! I take our friend, the Magic Wand, and I select the circle with a single click.

And, you see, now when I hide the circle layer and select our car layer, the Magic Wand has selected our tire for us! Like magic.

Then you can do whatever you want with it. Paste it into it's own layer, and we have a clean extracted tire.

I used this process for most of the rounded edges in the car videos. Works no matter what your background is, and you don't need to go in with an eraser and try to smooth out every dang rough edge.

If you were asking something completely different, let's hear it.
Otherwise, this process works really quickly and easily for me.