Can I block some of the same colour from being deleted by Magic Wand

[Inge4quilts]

Hi there!

 

I am new to Paint.net - and also the forum.  It looks like a really "cool" piece of software!  I stumbled upon it when I searched the internet for a way to clear the white from background pictures.

 

Everything went hunky dory until today, when I tried getting rid of a coloured background in a picture where some parts of the picture - parts that I want to keep - are coloured the same colour.  

 

Is there a way that I can DE-select some areas that I want to keep once Magic Wand selects it based on the colour that I clicked on, or is there another way to help me keep those areas that Magic Wand selects but that I do not want it to select?

 

Looking forward to your kind (and helpful - hehe) comments

 

Kind regards

 

Inge

[midora]

If you select one of the selection tools like the 'Magic Wand' then you will see in the tool strip of the tool some options which allow to apply a boolean operation to the existing selection. One is substract :Exclude:.

 

Do some training with rectangle select first to see how it works.

[Eli]

Hi Inge,

 

You have indeed stumbled upon the coolest piece of software.    and a wonderful community.

 

Have you tried adjusting the "Tolerance". If this does not help, you may deselect "substract" the zones you want to keep using the "lasso tool"

 

[Ego Eram Reputo]

To remove portions from an existing selection, hold down the Alt key while casting a new selection. This has the same effect as toggling the selection mode in the tool bar - but doesn't persist like the tool bar options.

BTW: This is the natural twin to the Ctrl key which adds new selections.

[Inge4quilts]

Hi everybody!

 

I would have liked to have responded quite a bit sooner, but all your ideas and suggestions required me to do quite a bit (a lot, to be honest...) of extra studying into your suggestions.  Thank you all very much for the pointers.

 

My level of understanding caused me to end up selecting the stuff that I wanted to make transparent (delete) with the Magic Wand, not choosing any subtract or add option in the tools to the left of the Tolerance sliding bar in the menu at the top, but leaving it at the default setting (Replace), and sliding the Tolerance bar up and down until I was happy with the amount of stuff selected.  I then simply hit Delete on the Keypad.

 

I then used the Lasso tool to select the stuff that had not been deleted and hit Delete every time that I'd lassoed an area - until everything had been deleted, or cleared as it were.

 

I initially saved the result as a JPG file, only to realize that I needed to save it as a PNG file for the deleted area to show up clear.

 

Well, for now, I am chuffed with myself!  It is a really difficult piece with lots and lots of colours that need to be deleted in the background, but which are also found in the actual stuff that need to stay.

 

But, thanks to your kind help and guidance I now have what I wanted to have!

 

Here's to maybe even being able to help somebody else some day in the not too distant future!

 

Kindest possible regards

 

Inge