subject: Magic Wand Tool Or Hand Drawn Or Manual Clipping Path; Who Does Better? [print this page] The effort of the following first paragraph is to introduce clipping path to aid them who are not familiar with graphics design and image industry. Those, who belong in the industry need not read it and can easily start from the next paragraph.
Clipping path is mainly used for cutting out an object from an image and replacing it in a new background that matches your objective of such manipulation. It is much more important than it sounds. Every day we are witnessing the charisma of background manipulation and clipping path in Magazines, books, catalogs, brochures, calendars, poster product-packages, online shops and many other where. We cant tell apart it as most of us are not involved in image and graphics design job. Almost all images involved in promotional or communicational uses, must have undergone some editing and manipulation. The most common and functional editing is clipping path for background removal. Look at every a stunning background around you, they all are from clipping path.
In magazine covers or ads we frequently see dramatic images like models with flying hair in front of a snowy mountain peak or horses jumping out from a bottle of energy drink. These images are not from real snaps but from two or more edited images. Silhouette or clipping path is the main way to do such editing in an image. Images need to change its own background to make a blend with other background or text to create a targeted environment.
In Photoshop there are a number of tools to make Clipping Path. In this article we intend to place a comparative study between Magic Wand Tool and Pen Tool as a professional instrument for clipping path.
Magic Wand Tool: This tool automatically makes selection in an image and converts it into a path. Then we can bring changes in that selected area including color change and background elimination. Its very effortless and fast way. But, such automated selection is made by Photoshop algorithm (e.g. pixels of similar color). So, it hardly ever creates an accurate path. It has too many anchor points that make the edge uneven and it may include some unwanted area. Both are adverse for a new convincing image that we mean to create. The correction of such blemish is also difficult and time consuming. Moreover it looks choked for too many anchor points after printing.
Magic Wand Tool is functional for home use or non-professional activities rather than graphics and print industry.
Pen Tool: Photoshop Pen Tool is the ultimate instrument for clipping path in the industry. It is a form of manual clipping path and totally hand drawn. It demands skilled hand and professional eye. The clipping path expert picks the Pen Tool from tool bar and straightly goes for drawing path just through the border of the image. He never denies any necessary pixel when he scrupulously goes through the edge of the object. As it depends on human skill, it is possible to make expected selection of an image. It just needs highest state of expertise. It has some deficiencies in furry, hairy and transparent images that can be resolved with the help of Background Color Remover, Channel masking and Layer Masking. Photoshop Pen tool is the most popular and practical way to work-out professional clipping path or background removing jobs in the industry.
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