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Instant Alpha magic wand

I am trying to remove the background in a png image with Preview, but the magic wand will not activate or move.

iMac with Retina 5K display, macOS Sierra (10.12.2), null

Posted on Aug 15, 2018 3:17 PM

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Question marked as Top-ranking reply

Posted on Aug 15, 2018 4:51 PM

From Preview Help:

  1. If the Markup toolbar isn’t showing, click the Show Markup Toolbar button, then click the Instant Alpha button [the magic wand].
  2. Drag over part of the background. Preview selects the area you dragged over and any pixels adjacent to it that have the same colors.
  3. To delete the selected area, press Delete.To delete everything outside the selected area, choose Edit > Invert Selection, then press Delete.

I clicked on the Magic Wand, then clicked (not dragged) on the background I wanted to remove. Worked perfectly. See below:

User uploaded file

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Question marked as Top-ranking reply

Aug 15, 2018 4:51 PM in response to dialabrain

From Preview Help:

  1. If the Markup toolbar isn’t showing, click the Show Markup Toolbar button, then click the Instant Alpha button [the magic wand].
  2. Drag over part of the background. Preview selects the area you dragged over and any pixels adjacent to it that have the same colors.
  3. To delete the selected area, press Delete.To delete everything outside the selected area, choose Edit > Invert Selection, then press Delete.

I clicked on the Magic Wand, then clicked (not dragged) on the background I wanted to remove. Worked perfectly. See below:

User uploaded file

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Aug 15, 2018 5:01 PM in response to dialabrain

When I first clicked on the wand, I expected to be able to move it and click on the background I wanted to clear. But when I clicked on the wand, nothing changed and I could not move it. But then I discovered that clicking on the wand activated it, and I then clicked on the area I wanted to remove and hit the delete key. - I then had the clear background in this image.

User uploaded file

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Instant Alpha magic wand

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