Magic Wand/Flood Select -- is it really that bad?

[David.P]

Hello Forum,

I'm currently trying to select area regions in a photo with the Magic Wand aka Flood Select tool, as I've done about 1 million times in paint.net.

Can it be that in Affinity Photo you have to set the tolerance of that tool in advance, and that you can't adjust it afterwards in order to increase or decrease the size of the captured area?

I can't believe that the Magic Wand tool in Affinity Photo would be so much inferior to the one in paint.net.

[thomaso]

1 hour ago, David.P said:

Can it be that in Affinity Photo you have to set the tolerance of that tool in advance, and that you can't adjust it afterwards in order to increase or decrease the size of the captured area?

Works well for me in macOS.

[v_kyr]

See also:

• Selection tools
  • Selection Brush Tool
  • Flood Select Tool  <-- ***
  • Marquee Selection Tools

Quote

Flood Select Tool

The Flood Select Tool enables you to select pixels of a similar color.

Pixels added to a selection are determined by the color of the pixel or adjacent pixels under the tool when you click or drag across the page, respectively. The dragging operation controls the selection tolerance, i.e. how much the selection will grow to encompass pixels of similar color values under the cursor.

Settings

The following settings can be adjusted from the context toolbar:

• Mode—select from New, Add, Subtract, and Intersect.
• Source—the source determines the layer(s) from which the pixels are sampled. Select from the pop-up menu.
• Tolerance—sets the range of pixels affected when a pixel is clicked. For lower tolerance settings, pixels must be very close in value to the clicked pixel. For higher tolerance settings, pixel color can vary widely from the clicked pixel.
• Contiguous—when enabled, only selects a range of pixels within the same area. If disabled, similar pixel ranges will be selected even if they are separated and in different parts of the image.
• Refine—click to display the Refine Selection dialog to access advanced selection settings.

About selection modes

The four modes available from the context toolbar affect how your selection develops.

• New—cancels all current selections and creates a new selection.
• Add—adds areas to the current selection. If there is no selection in place, a new selection will be created.
• Subtract—removes areas from the current selection.
• Intersect—a new selection area is created from the overlap between the newly added selection area and the current selection.

 

[David in Яuislip]

1 hour ago, David.P said:

Can it be that in Affinity Photo you have to set the tolerance of that tool in advance

Yes on windows but try Select/ Select Sample Colour as that has a live Tolerance setting which may work better for you

[Old Bruce]

I am not sure if this will work for you but I find if I set the tolerance to a low value then click and drag the tolerance will increase or decrease. Seems a bit flakey but it does work after a fashion.

[thomaso]

35 minutes ago, Old Bruce said:

set the tolerance to a low value then click and drag the tolerance will increase or decrease.

A nice feature that I haven't noticed yet. Dragging with this tool changes the tolerance independently of the image contents (also works on white and outside the canvas), which seems useful to me because this tool is actually only meant to make a selection on click (unlike the selection brush tool).

[David.P]

55 minutes ago, Old Bruce said:

I am not sure if this will work for you but I find if I set the tolerance to a low value then click and drag the tolerance will increase or decrease.

It works exactly this way in Paint.net, too. But not in Affinity Photo on Windows ☹️

[Old Bruce]

15 minutes ago, thomaso said:

seems useful to me because this tool is actually only meant to make a selection on click (unlike the selection brush tool).

Oh, great. I guess this means this bug will get fixed. [sardonic smiley face emoticon]

[lacerto]

For me the tool works exactly the same on Windows and macOS so changing the tolerance setting using the Tolerance Box (typing in new values, or scrolling the mouse wheel etc.) does not alter the existing selection, but dragging with the mouse on canvas does. Personally I find the biggest issue with this tool that it does not support antialiased selection.

[walt.farrell]

5 minutes ago, David.P said:

It works exactly this way in Paint.net, too. But not in Affinity Photo on Windows ☹️

I'm not sure what you're saying doesn't work.'

If you click/drag the Flood Select Tool on Windows, then dragging to the right increases the tolerance (but ignoring the initial value you set), and if you then drag to the left it will decrease the tolerance.

[David.P]

14 minutes ago, David.P said:

I find if I set the tolerance to a low value then click and drag the tolerance will increase or decrease

Whoa! Who would have thought to click and drag inside the image, instead of on the tool's tolerance slider! 

That's pretty neat indeed.

[lacerto]

1 hour ago, David in Яuislip said:

Select/ Select Sample Colour as that has a live Tolerance setting which may work better for you

This tool only works with Pixel layers (rasterized images).

[walt.farrell]

55 minutes ago, David.P said:

Whoa! Who would have thought to click and drag inside the image, instead of on the tool's tolerance slider! 

That's pretty neat indeed.

Anyone who reads the Help, or looks at the Status Bar

[David.P]

"RightMouse to add" does nothing in my case 🙁

What is "RightMouse" anyway. I only know "Right Click" 🤔

[walt.farrell]

3 minutes ago, David.P said:

"RightMouse to add" does nothing in my case 🙁

What is "RightMouse" anyway. I only know "Right Click" 🤔

You press the Right-Mouse button while Dragging. Note that Drag = Press Left-Mouse button and move the mouse, so "Right-Mouse to add" implies pressing both mouse buttons while dragging.

[Old Bruce]

13 minutes ago, walt.farrell said:

or looks at the Status Bar

One would think that I would pay more attention to this. I am amazed by what some of the tools can actually do. Some how I never look there, even though past experience has shown me it is actually quite a good source of information.

[ronnyb]

An ancient sage once said, “The Help you seek is within… RTFM” 😜 

38 minutes ago, walt.farrell said:

Anyone who reads the Help, or looks at the Status Bar

 

23 minutes ago, Old Bruce said:

One would think that I would pay more attention to this. I am amazed by what some of the tools can actually do. Some how I never look there, even though past experience has shown me it is actually quite a good source of information.

 

[R C-R]

4 hours ago, Old Bruce said:

One would think that I would pay more attention to this. I am amazed by what some of the tools can actually do. Some how I never look there, even though past experience has shown me it is actually quite a good source of information.

Once you get used to it, one of its nicer features is it is context sensitive, so some of the items it shows change depending on where in the document window the pointer is positioned.

[brainfarts]

If, instead of a mouse, you are using a graphics tablet, as I do, the drag to adjust tolerance feature renders the tool absolutely useless. Nearly every time the pen comes in contact with the tablet, the tolerance changes. More often than not it is reset to a tolerance of one (1). There needs to be a way to disable this so called feature. I've been using magic wand-like tools for forty years without the need for tolerance values to unexpectedly shift during use. For at least 25 years, a Wacom tablet has been my primary input device, supporting both a wireless mouse and a pen. For text based operations I use the mouse, but for all graphics related work I use the pen. Please provide some way to disable the shifting tolerance feature.