Photoshop Select Sky vs Magic Wand: Accurate Tree and Sky Selections

The original image. There is detail in the sky

The image with over-strong edits to clearly show selection quality

One of Photoshop’s selection tools produced the edited result you see here, handling the tree and sky with far greater accuracy than the others. Which tool was responsible for this, and why did it perform so well? Read on to see the masks and results in detail — the outcome may surprise you.

From the menu; Select > Sky.

Unlike other selection tools, this is not available in the toolbar.

Photoshop will then automatically select the sky in the photo.

The sky is automatically selected, as shown by the "marching ants".

At the bottom of the Layers panel, click on the Adjustment Layer button and select Levels.

A Levels adjustment layer will be added and a Layer Mask will be applied automatically. All Adjustment Layers include a layer mask, which is automatically created from an active selection (visible "marching ants".

For more information see Adjustment Layers

When the Adjustment Layer is added, initially you won't see any difference, until you edit Levels, using the Histogram. I've made the following adjustments;

• Black Slider (green boxes):
• Mid-Gray Slider (cyan boxes):
• White Slider (red boxes):

I have deliberately made strong adjustments, particularly with the Mid-Gray slider, to clearly show the deficiency in the Sky Mask, around the foliage of the tree.

If you only make slight adjustments, you may get away with a mask like this, but the point of this tutorial is to examine the quality of Select Sky through foliage

Related tutorial:
The Histogram

Select Sky didn't produce a great selection of the sky in this image, through the foliage of the tree so let's try another tool, such as Object Select, which normally produces good selections of objects. Object Select shares the tool button with the Quick Selection and Magic Wand tools. Just click once in the sky and let the tool automatically select the sky.

However, when I did this, it produced an identical selection to the Select Sky. These screenshots show the same Levels adjustments.

I checked this by placing the two layers on top of each other and changing the Blending Mode of the top layer to Difference. The Difference Blend Mode shows even the tiniest of differences between two layers. There were no differences, whatsoever.

The Select Sky layer mask shows areas within the tree are gray, therefore not poorly selected

The Layer Masks clearly show the superior selection with the Magic Wand, compared to the selection using Select Sky (or Object Select, as they are identical).

On PC, inspect the layer mask by pressing Alt and clicking the layer mask. On a Mac, press the Option key.

Related tutorial:
Layer Masks

The Magic Wand selection has resulted in all the sky being edited by the Adjustment Layer

The Select Sky selection has resulted in far less of the sky behind the tree being edited by the Adjustment Layer

The first screenshot shows the edited version after using Magic Wand to select the sky. The second image shows the Select Sky / Object Select result, as discussed in previous step. Both images had the same Levels adjustments as detailed in step 4.

Magic Wand has achieved a far better quality selection of the sky among the tree foliage. Whilst the Select Sky and Object Select can make great selections of clear skies, when there is foliage present, or other similar instances of small detail, Magic Wand does a better job, even though it's one of the oldest tools in Photoshop.

Select Magic Wand from the toolbar. It shares the tool button with the Object Selection Tool and the Quick Selection Tool.

Related tutorial:
A Comprehensive look at The Magic Wand Tool and all its options

Select Add to Selection. This is the 2nd button and allows you to click multiple times in the image, which is important, so you select the full range of tones in the sky, especially between branches.

If the setting is on the first button - New Selection - each time you click, it will remove the previous selection and create a new selection.

It's important that you click in multiple areas to make a good selection.

Related tutorial:
Selection Buttons

When you click in an image, Tolerance is the number of tones different from the place that you clicked, lighter and darker, that will be selected and added to the selection.

If Contiguous is selected, Magic Wand will only select pixels that are within the Tolerance of where you clicked and are touching other selected pixels.

To select areas within the tree foliage, you must ensure Contiguous is not selected.

Ensure Anti-alias is selected. You can then forget about this setting and permanently leave it selected. It smooths pixels.

Click in multiple different places, both sides of the tree, to ensure you select all the different tones in the sky.

When you have selected multiple areas, click on the Adjustment Layers button at the bottom of the Layers panel. This is probably the easiest method, as you will always have the Layers panel open.

Or if you use the Adjustments panel > Single Adjustment, select Levels.

Or from the menu: Layer > New Adjustment Layer > Levels.

The layer thumbnail is selected

The layer mask is selected

When you have a layer mask on a layer, you can either select the layer itself, or the mask. The selected one is highlighted with a white box around it, as shown in the screenshots.

Because this is an Adjustment Layer (Levels) the layer thumbnail is a small representation of the Histogram. Double click the layer thumbnail to edit the Adjustment Layer. Adjustment Layers are non-destructive, so you can edit them as much as you wish, without affecting the quality of the image.

Related tutorial:
Layers Basics

The layer mask shows area within the tree are gray, therefore not perfectly selected

When an adjustment has been applied, it's clear that the sky within the tree has not been edited the same as the rest of the sky

After making a selection and in this case, adding a Levels Adjustment Layer, it's always a good idea to inspect the layer mask. To do this, just press and hold the Alt key on a PC (Option key on a Mac) and click directly on the layer mask. As far as I know, you can't inspect a layer mask on a phone or tablet.

Layer Masks are black and white, and shades of gray. In this mask the selected sky area should be white and outside the tree it is perfect white, so it has been perfectly selected, outside the tree.

However within the tree foliage, it's clearly not white, which shows that the sky area within the foliage has not been well selected.

In this example I have applied a strong edit to the sky, to make things clear, but if your edit was more subtle, it's good practice to inspect the layer mask.

Duplicate Layer

The sky has been successfully edited, but to edit the tree separately, we will duplicate the Levels Adjustment Layer.

Right click the layer and select Duplicate Layer, or Ctrl+J, or click the + button at the bottom of the Layers panel. Or from the menu: Layer > Duplicate Layer.

Original Layer Mask

Inverted Layer Mask

Select the Layer Mask of the Levels Adjustment Layer.

Ctrl+I to invert the layer mask.

The original layer mask selected all of the sky. The inverted layer mask selects everything except the sky.

Original Layer Mask

Levels Adjustment Layer settings

Double click the layer thumbnail of the adjustment layer - highlighted in red.

This opens the Levels Adjustment Layer, so you can edit the adjustments. The settings I used are:

• Black slider (green): 11
• Mid Gray slider (cyan): 1.08
• White slider (red): 166

Only sky is edited

Tree and sky are each individually edited

Again, I've made a strong adjustment, so changes can be seen clearly, to demonstrate the process.