Photoshop Tutorial for Fashion Design (Part 7)
Tools: Eraser, Bucket, Gradient

Eraser deletes part of the image using freehand brush stroke. Just click and drag the cursor over the image. As I’m erasing, the area becomes transparent. If a layer’s protected from transparency, you can see this little padlock, the eraser will use background color to cover the deleted areas. The same rule applies to flat images: documents with only background layer, and the original background layer that is partially protected with the padlock on the right. You can see that my background color is showing through.

The Eraser tool can be used in three different modes displayed in the option bar. Choose “Brush” mode to have brush options including airbrush capability. That will give you much softer edges as you erase. Choose “Pencil” for pencil options and to erase with hard edges.And finally “Block” mode that has fixed size, shape and texture. As you can see, all other options are grayed out in the option bar. Let’s undo the changes using History palette. As you can see, History palette content
depends on the active document.

Background Eraser is usually employed to isolate part of the image. It allows you to use freehand brush stroke to delete specific colors. Conceptually, Background Eraser is very similar to Color Replacement tool and they both have the same brush sets, modes, limits and tolerance.

“Continuous Sampling” mode samples the color to delete as you drag your cursor over the image and it’s best used when more than one color needs to be erased to isolate your image. However, working in that mode can be tricky so it is imperative to understand the process. When you click on the artwork, Background Eraser samples the color under the crosshair right in the middle of the brush cursor. As you drag your mouse, Background Eraser will continue sampling the color to delete at crosshair point using the rest of the brush to erase. So even when brush edges go over the neighboring colors, they will remain unchanged as long as the crosshair point doesn’t touch the areas you want to preserve.

“Sampling Once” mode samples the color to delete when you first click on the area any it only erases initially sampled color. It’s best used when there is only one color you want to erase. Click and drag the cursor to sample and delete: make sure you don’t release the mouse! To resample the color, release the mouse and repeat the process.

“Background Swatch” mode will only delete the color that is set as a background. Pick Eyedropper tool from the toolbox, hold Option key [ALT key in Windows] and click to sample to set the color as your background. Then go back to the Background Eraser tool, make sure it’s in the correct mode and simply click and drag to erase the background color. Adjust your tolerance to increase the color range if necessary. Limits are responsible for the way colors are erased.

In “Contiguous” setting, the Background Eraser will only delete connected areas under the brush. “Find Edges” sets the same limits deleting only connected areas under the brush but this option is not as sensitive and best works with color contrast.

“Discontiguous” setting deletes all the areas with sampled color even if they are not connected. And finally “Protect Foreground Color” option. It does just that: it protects your foreground color. Make sure your foreground color is set in the toolbox, go back to Eraser, make sure option is checked, and then click and drag to erase. As you can see, your foreground color is safe.

Magic Eraser tool does a wonderful job deleting unwanted colors. Just like Magic Wand, it recognizes hues, saturation and lightness, and logically, has Magic Wand options like tolerance anti-alias and contiguous. To use, simply click on the color you want to erase. Unchecked “Contiguous” if you want to delete the color through the entire layer.

Gradient and Paint Bucket tools can be classified as fills. Paint Bucket fills the areas with foreground color or pattern but as opposed to the Fill in the Edit menu, that fills the entire layer or selection, Paint Bucket only fills the color you click on. To use the tool, adjust the settings in the option bar. Set “Contiguous” if you only want to fill the connected areas and click on the color you want to fill. In my case, I want to fill transparent areas. You can also uncheck the “Contiguous” option to fill all the same color areas throughout the entire layer.

Generally, I don’t like having background color on the same layer with my image. It makes it much harder to change, especially if it’s a pattern or gradient. So whenever I clean my artwork, I create a new layer for the background. Now I can apply any background I want like pattern, for example, without affecting my clean image. And for any further changes I will use Edit menu Fill command.

The Gradient tool is more like Edit > Fill command. It applies gradient to the entire layer or selection, regardless of the image colors. Gradient tool is used to create color blends at various angles. A simple way to fill an image with gradient… Choose foreground and background colors in the toolbox to set the color range. Then place the cursor where you want the gradient to begin, click and drag to determine where you want it to end, and release the mouse to apply the gradient. You can choose the gradient to appear linear, radial, angled, reflected, and diamond.

Similarly to the Edit > Fill command, the Gradient tool applies blend to the entire layer or can be limited with a selection. In addition to a foreground and background colors blend, you can create your own gradient presets that will be listed under the sample icon in the option bar. Click on the sample icon to bring up the Gradient Editor window. You can click to select from various presets as a starting point.

To change a color, double click on the gradient stop symbol and choose a new color from the color picker. To add a color, click in the area between color stops, then double click to set a new color. You can also change gradient transition placement by sliding the color midpoint. To duplicate a color, hold Option [ALT] key on the keyboard then click and drag the color stop. To delete the color, click on the color stop to select and click “Delete”. Use the top of the slider to set transparency. When you are happy with the gradient, type the name, click “New” to add to the presets and click “OK”. Now you have your new gradient listed in the presets.