Make select wand smooth?

[Srawb]

How do I make it, so that if I use the wand tool, it "part selects" edge pixels (like in the image attached)? I already set Selection Quality to "Smooth selection edges" but it still is exclusively pixelated (See second image attached). How do I make the selection smooth, so that when I press the Delete key, it isn't a binary "Delete" and "Don't delete", but rather a "Delete", "Delete partially", "Don't delete"?

 

          (36% Tolerance)

[Tactilis]

28 minutes ago, Srawb said:

How do I make the selection smooth, so that when I press the Delete key, it isn't a binary "Delete" and "Don't delete", but rather a "Delete", "Delete partially", "Don't delete"

By "Delete partially" you really mean "Make the pixels near the selection edge partially transparent".


You could use BoltBait's Feather Selection plugin t achieve this. It is included in his plugin pack:
 

 

[Srawb]

Thank you, I will try it!

[Srawb]

It did not work as I wanted it to. Even after using that tool, it still didn't smooth the make the pixels near the selection edge partially transparent.

 

[Pixey]

@Srawb please try this Plugin which may help.  AA's Assistant.

 

"How do I make it, so that if I use the wand tool, it "part selects" edge pixels".  Try lowering the Tolerance in the upper tool bar.

[Srawb]

Both of these suggestions still do not work sadly.

[Tactilis]

There may be some misunderstanding here.

Can you explain or show us exactly which part of your image you want to keep and where you expect the edge to be smoothed please?

Are the images you have shown highly zoomed screenshots in which each block represents an individual pixel in the source image? If that is the case, you can't have 'partially deleted' pixels; i.e you can't have a smooth 45° line running through the pixels (if that's what you are trying to achieve). Pixels are non-divisible; they can have a colour and a degree of transparency and can be wholly selected (or not).

[Pixey]

19 minutes ago, Srawb said:

Both of these suggestions still do not work sadly.

 

The wand is not going to give you straight edges.  You must wand first, then use AA's Assistant, of Feather, afterwards.

[BoltBait]

2 hours ago, Srawb said:

It did not work as I wanted it to. Even after using that tool, it still didn't smooth the make the pixels near the selection edge partially transparent.

 

 

You're probably not using the plugins properly.

 

Let's say you have a line, (similar to the one above) like so:

 

I have zoomed in so you can see the individual pixels.

 

Without selecting anything (Ctrl+D) use the Effects > Object > Feather Object plugin:

 

[Srawb]

9 minutes ago, Tactilis said:

There may be some misunderstanding here.

Can you explain or show us exactly which part of your image you want to keep and where you expect the edge to be smoothed please?

Are the images you have shown highly zoomed screenshots in which each block represents an individual pixel in the source image? If that is the case, you can't have 'partially deleted' pixels; i.e you can't have a smooth 45° line running through the pixels (if that's what you are trying to achieve). Pixels are non-divisible; they can have a colour and a degree of transparency and can be wholly selected (or not).

I am trying to do that. And it indeed is possible, as shown below (done with the Lasso selection tool). When deleting the selection, it works like I want it to work, where it makes pixels partially transparent. This for some reason does not work with the selection wand.

 

 

 

 

6 minutes ago, BoltBait said:

 

You're probably not using the plugins properly.

 

Let's say you have a line, (similar to the one above) like so:

 

I have zoomed in so you can see the individual pixels.

 

Without selecting anything (Ctrl+D) use the Effects > Object > Feather Object plugin:

 

 

This does not work either, as seen in the background here:

Even if I have the object selected and I use the Feather Object, it does not work.

[BoltBait]

5 minutes ago, Srawb said:

Even if I have the object selected and I use the Feather Object, it does not work.

 

OK, here's where the confusion lies:

 

An "object" is defined (in Paint.NET) as a set of pixels surrounded by completely transparent pixels.

 

You're running an object plugin on a layer that has no objects.

[Tactilis]

10 minutes ago, Srawb said:

And it indeed is possible, as shown below (done with the Lasso selection tool). When deleting the selection, it works like I want it to work, where it makes pixels partially transparent. This for some reason does not work with the selection wand.

That's because the Magic Wand selects pixels (i.e whole pixels) whose colour is with a given tolerance of the colour you click on. There can be no concept of half selecting pixels; they either match the colour+tolerance or they don't.

[MJW]

Antialiasing for Magic Wand selections would be very desirable. Unfortunately, the Magic Mand only selects whole pixels, as Rick Brewster explained in a 2017 comment.

[Srawb]

I ended up using Photoshop, as that has antialiasing. I still had to do a lot manually, but it worked like I wanted it to work. Hope that antialiasing would get added at some point.