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Posted by on March 9, 2021

 

Photoshop comes loaded with so many tools that it becomes confusing to tell which one should be used to handle a certain or task. You might have seen a little eraser in your toolbar? The Eraser Tool in Photoshop is easy to use, but it certainly has some pitfalls. In this article, we will help you to learn how to use the eraser tool in Photoshop. We will mention the technique to use a background eraser.

Eraser Tool offers three options to choose from: The Eraser, Background Eraser, and Magic Eraser. When you are using Pencil Tool, you get an option of an auto-erase function as well. 

On this page, we will point out the differences between each of these tools to help you understand which tools are best for you. It’s important to note that the Eraser tool is destructive. That means, whatever you erase using the Eraser tool, the changes will be permanent so, you should always make a copy of your original image before experimenting with this tool.

You might be thinking about how you can get rid of objects you don’t want to see in your image. The entire process is very simple. You just need to add a layer mask to the layer you want to remove and use the Brush tool to mask out the area you want to conceal. If you are using a regular brush and mask with black, you can get the same results as the Eraser tool. 

Understanding the eraser tool 

  • The first step is to choose the Eraser tool. 
  • Select the background color you want to add to the existing background
  • Choose brush, pencil, and block modes according to the design you want. Brushes are available in round shapes with soft edges, pencils are similar to drawn lines, and blocks are squares with hard edges.
  • If you are using brush or pencil mode, you need to set the opacity and flow available in the options toolbar. 
  • Hold down the cursor and drag it across the areas you want to remove. 

The Eraser tool works like a brush. You can change the size, hardness, and spacing, just like a painting brush. You can change options from brush to Pencil or Block. The eraser tool deletes unwanted pixels from the image. 

Background eraser tool

  • Go to the Layers panel and choose the layer containing the area that you want to remove.
  • Hold the Eraser tool and choose Background Eraser underneath it. 
  • Choose a brush and adjust size, hardness, angle, roundness, and spacing.
  • Choose Limit mode
  • Discontiguous: clears sampled color wherever cursor comes beneath the brush.
  • Contiguous: clears sampled color in connected areas.
  • Find Edges: clears connected areas that contain the sample color without changing the shape.
  • Select Tolerance level. High tolerance for a wider range of colors than low tolerance. 
  • Select Protect Foreground Color option to protect the unexpected removal of foreground colors.
  • Choose a Sampling Option: Continuous option will continuously sample colors while you are dragging the eraser tool. Once option will erase only the color when you click it. The background Swatch option will remove any area in the background color.

The Background Eraser tool is not the same as the Eraser tool. As soon as you click on this tool, the tool and cursor will change to a circle with a + in the middle. Unlike other tools, the Background Eraser tool does the sampling of the colors that are under the + in the center of the circle. 

Magic Eraser Tool

  • Select the Magic Eraser Tool from the toolbar.
  • Select the Tolerance value. High tolerance removes a large number of colors and low tolerance erases colors almost similar to the one you choose. 
  • Select the Anti-Aliased option to get smooth edges.
  • Select or deselect Contiguous if you want to erase just connecting pixels or similar pixels.
  • Choose Sample All Layers to view a sampling of the erased color. 
  • Select Opacity level. 
  • Click on the area you want to be erased.

The Magic Eraser tool as the name suggests is almost similar to the Magic Wand tool. The Magic Eraser works like the Magic Wand tool and then erases the background. Using this tool is easy. You just need to click on the area you want to remove and Photoshop will remove all the pixels in that area. 

 

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