Figure 3-20 shows the final effect, complete with radiant courthouse
and bombs bursting in air. Granted, it’s an unlikely composition.
But given that it’s the product of a few polygons and ellipses, I’d
rate it a soul-stirring success.Figure 3-20.Selecting Regions of Continuous Color
Next, we’ll take a look at one of Photoshop’s oldest and most au-
tomated selection tools, the magic wand, which lets you select an
area of color with a single click. This tool gets short shrift from
some, who argue that it became obsolete when the quick selection
tool came along, but they miss the point.
Whereas the quick selection tool (which we’ll see in the next exer-
cise) works by detecting edges, the magic wand allows you to make
one-click selections based on similar colors and luminance values.
This makes it especially useful for removing skies and other rela-
tively solid backgrounds, as we’ll see in this exercise.74 Lesson 3: Making Selections