The Magic Wand Tool...
If anyone ever tells you that the Magic Wand Tool is the thing to use when creating a clipping path in Photoshop, please don't listen. Just walk away. It's a great shortcut, but like most quick fixes, the results are often terrible, and it takes twice as long to fix it as it does to do it properly.
The Magic Wand Tool selects large areas of similarly colored pixels and creates a selection area. If you SHIFT-CLICK on another area of color it will add the selection to the existing area.
This works best when you have a large area of the same color to select. You can alter the broadness of the color selection by increasing or decreasing the value in the Tolerance field of the Options Palette (visible when the Magic Wand Tool is selected. A higher value for a broader selection of pixel color values, a lower for a tighter selection). The default value is 32.
For example, the image used in this tutorial would be a good Magic Wand candidate because there's a large area of blue sky to select. To create a (poor quality) clipping path, click on the blue area above the sculpture with the Magic Wand Tool. Then, while holding down the Shift key (to add to your existing selection), click on the blue area bottom left of the image. You'll end up with the image shown below (left). All areas of blue are selected. Go to Select/Inverse in order to select the sculpture instead of the sky.
To create a vector path, go to the Paths Palette, click the little submenu arrow top right and select Make Work Path... It will ask you what Tolerance to enter. The higher the figure, the more points will appear on the path, and the closer (but more raggedly) it will hug the image. The lower the number, the fewer points will appear on the path, and the smoother (but less accurate) the path will be. For now, enter a value of 2.0.
Once the work path has been made, select Save Path... from the same submenu. Then click the submenu once more and select Clipping Path... You will be asked for a 'Flatness' value. Leave this blank - you don't need to worry about Flatness unless you experience printing problems - in this event type 'Flatness' into Photoshop Help for assistance.
Now zoom in on the path you just created. If you used a value of 2.0, the image below left will show you how inaccurate the path was. If you used a lower value, say 0.5, the second image below will show you how ragged the result will be:
Once you've converted your image to CMYK and ensured that it's 300 DPI, actual size (assuming it needs to be press-ready), save the image as a Photoshop EPS file using the default values. Then place the image in InDesign. SelectView/Display Performance/High Quality Display in order to get the best on-screen redraw. You'll see that Photoshop clipping paths with a Tolerance level of 2 will show a smooth result, but allow areas of the background to appear, and will cut into the image where it shouldn't. Photoshop clipping paths with a lower Tolerance make the image edges appear jagged and poor.
This is why you should never trust the Magic Wand Tool to help you make a Photoshop clipping path. And the image used as a demonstration here actually gives the best result you're likely to see because of the large area of blue and sharply defined edges - and it still isn't good enough.
The ONLY time you should ever consider the above method is when you need a really quick, low resolution, positional cutout for proofing purposes. Whenever possible, however, do it the RIGHT way:
0 comments:
Post a Comment