Selection with the Magic Wand

The Magic Wand tool lets you select groups of adjacent pixels of similar color. We will use it to select the dark region at the upper left of the picture and then you will apply "Dust & Scratches" to just that region.

• Select the magic wand by clicking on its icon in the tool box (right icon in the second row).

• Double click on the magic wand tool. The magic wand options palette should appear in the options palette at the upper right of the screen.

• Make sure that the "tolerance" option in the magic wand options palette is set to "20". Smaller tolerance values make the magic wand pickier about how similar the colors of the pixels it selects must be.

• Point the magic wand cursor to the middle of the dark region with the dust specks at the upper left of the image and click once. This should select most of the pixels in the region. The boundary between the pixels that are selected and those that are not will be indicated by a irregularly shaped blinking marquee. You will probably notice very small regions of unselected pixels indicated by barely visible pieces of blinking marquee.

• If the selection doesn't quite include the entire dark region containing the dust (it probably won't), select the "Grow" item from the "Select" menu. This should expand the selection to include all but a few small areas in the dark region. Unfortunately, those areas are likely to be the dust we want to work on.

• If necessary (it probably will be), you can get the dust included in the selection by "Expanding" the selection.
  • Open the "Select" menu again, select the "Modify" sub-menu and then the "Expand" item within the sub-menu. A dialog box will appear.
  • Enter "1" for the number of pixels by which to expand and click "OK". The selection should now include the dust. If not, try expand again with a larger pixel value. If you expand too much, use "Undo" from the "Edit" menu.
• Now, select "Dust & Scratches" again from the "Noise" sub-menu of the "Select" menu and adjust the "Radius" and "Threshold" sliders until the dust is gone. Notice that other parts of the image are not blurred this time. Then click "OK".
• Select "Deselect" from the "Select" menu to get rid of the selection marquee and admire your work. Save your work at this point too.