How to delete in a straight line

[ooFumbles]

Hello! I was wondering if there was a way to delete things in a straight line (as the title suggests). Basically I'm stuck using the eraser with the smallest brush width to delete very precise contour in a background from an image and it would save me sooooooo much time if there was a way to create a straight line. The magic wand can't select areas precisely enough and I've even tried rectangle selection and then rotating but that isn't very practical either. I know there is a straight line tool, but it only seems to "draw" a straight line rather than actually delete anything (or maybe it does delete but I have no idea). Any suggestions would be greatly appreciated!

[HyReZ]

Greetings,

You could duplicate the layer then turn off anit-aliasing.

Next choose a color that is not in the area that you want to delete.

Set your  desired brush width for the line you want to delete and draw over it with that selected color

then use the wand tool to delete that color.

Edited June 3, 2019 by HyReZ

[Pixey]

Hello @ooFumbles and Welcome

 

I'm not a 100% sure of your question, but here's an idea of using the magic wand to select an area:

 

 

 

[MJW]

One method for doing that is to use BoltBait's Paste Alpha plugin to paste in a line. Paste Alpha is useful for all sorts of detailed erasing tasks. Use the "Minimum of alpha and clipboard alpha" mode. Make sure you chose the proper clipboard alpha source of either alpha or shades of gray, depending on what you're doing.

 

Another, more direct, method is to choose the line/curve tool, is to set the Primary Color to transparent (alpha of 0), and the Blending Mode (in the Tool Bar) to Overwrite.

[IHaveNoName]

The straight line being talked about is, from the sound of it not perpendicular on the canvas and therefore it is always going to be 'stepped'. In short it is actually not a straight line. That's the problem.

 

If you try rotating a Selection box you will not be able to place it so it doesn't overlap pixels at the edge of the area to be erased which you want to keep. Result is the previously straight edge ends up raggedy.

 

This is a theoretical solution, may not be practical or even work:-

 

Rather than rotate the Selection box I'm wondering if it would be possible to rotate either part of or even the whole image so the line to be erased is perpendicular to the edge. That should result in a clean, genuinely straight line to the edge to be erased up/down/left/right. Erase that with the selection tool in the normal way then rotate the image or part of the image back to its original orientation.

 

It may be necessary or at least a good idea to increase the canvas size so that the image can be rotated without clipping the corners.    

 

 

 

Edited June 5, 2019 by IHaveNoName

[Danmansonman]

My preferred method is just to use a line tool size 20+ with the highlighter green colour, and with Antialiasing turned Off.  After drawing the green lines around all the areas I was deleted in a straight line, I just select the green areas with the magic tool and delete.

 

 

 

 

Edited November 3, 2022 by Danmansonman