Photoshop Elements >

Selection Tools >

Magic Wand Tool & Tolerance

What Tolerance Does

The Magic Wand tool has a Tolerance box in the options bar.

You can enter brightness values from 0 to 255.

If you enter a low number, the tool will select less.

If you enter a higher number, the tool will select more.

How Tolerance Works

Let's say you want to select the sky in a photograph.

You click on the sky with the Magic Wand tool.

Here's the color of the sky at the point where you clicked.

This color is composed of the colors below.

Red	112
Green	193
Blue	243

Let's say the tolerance was set to 50.

Photoshop Elements searches for colors that are 50 brightness values above and below the above values.

Red	112 ± 50
Green	193 ± 50
Blue	243 ± 50

Go to a Visualization of the Tolerance Example.

Experiment

Download the step wedge below, and open it in Photoshop Elements.

Using the Magic Wand tool at different tolerance settings.

Click on the gray in the middle.

You'll see how more or less tones are selected depending on the tolerance value.

Step Wedge