Enlarge Eraser? Remove Hour Glass?

[Carver]

This is my first attempt at using Paint.NET. I am trying to remove the background from a photo so it can have a transparent background. I have used the magic wand and the eraser. Tonight when I opened the photo I was working on, when I click on the magic wand, an hour glass appears instead of the magic wand. I tried reopening that photo and closing and restarting paint.net but that did not help.

1. What should I do to get the magic wand back?

2. The eraser works well, but I think I could do a better job with a larger eraser. Is there anyway to increase the size of the eraser?

[Rick Brewster]

For (2), the eraser uses the brush size that is set in the toolbar.

[Bob]

1. is very very wierd.

You click on the magic wand in the tools window, right?

[Rick Brewster]

Maybe the cursor is just set wrong.

Does it work if you click to try and use it anyway?

[Carver]

Something is really wrong. Yes, I select the magic wand from the tools just as I did before when it worked properly, Now, however, when I move the wand to a place where I would like to use it, when I click to activate it, the magic wand icon becomes an hour glass and does not change from that.

I did not know that the brush size also sets the eraser size. Thanks for that information.

I just changed the brush size. However, the eraser is NOT erasing. When I try to erase now, intead of erasing, it leaves new marks on the background that I am trying to remove. I do not know if this peculiar action of the eraser just started today, or whether that would have been true last night when the magic wand began acting strangely. Perhaps both problems are related.

As a recap. I used the magic wand for two nights and it worked fine. I only used the eraser the first night. The eraser worked fine but seemed too small and I did not know how to enlarge it. So last night I used only the magic wand. Today I opened the photo that I had worked on, selected the magic wand the same way as before but instead of working, when I tried to use the wand an hour glass appeared in place of the magic wand icon and the hour glass does not change no matter how long I wait.

[usedHONDA]

The eraser one should be an easy fix. This stylized screenshot will show you:

[sagedavis]

Download and reinstall PDN..

See if that works. Something might be messed up with your system.

Also, is it possible that some other program is taking over your system, making it impossible for your programs to work properly.

Sage

[Rick Brewster]

... However, the eraser is NOT erasing. When I try to erase now, intead of erasing, it leaves new marks on the background that I am trying to remove. I do not know if this peculiar action of the eraser just started today, or whether that would have been true last night when the magic wand began acting strangely.

Please read this thoroughly: http://www.getpaint.net/doc/3.05/en/Lay ... Modes.html

Especially the section called Pixels and Transparency.

[Bob]

when I click to activate it, the magic wand icon becomes an hour glass and does not change from that.

So it changes when you click on it.

Maybe your image is really big, and your maybe old computer hangs to finish the process.

How long did you wait?