How to Use the Eraser Tool in Adobe Photoshop

You may have an artifact in a scanned image or digital image that you want to remove from the background. The eraser tool only works on the background and with the background color that you select. In most ways it behaves like a paintbrush that removes the existing pixels and paints with the new background color.

Instructions

Difficulty: Moderately Easy

Things You’ll Need:

• Adobe Photoshop 6.0 running on a MAC or PC.
• An imaged flawed with a background artifact.

1. Zoom in on the artifact Open the original image in Adobe Photoshop and zoom in to the part of the image that has the artifact. Chances are as you zoom in you will notice other small artifacts that need to be erased. In this picture we want to erase the blemish area to the right and above Jerry Garcia's head.
2. Color selector Before selecting the eraser tool we need to set the color to the correct color we want to erase with. In this case you can see the background is white and foreground is red. Using the color selector tool (the eyedropper) click to the left of the blemish. Select this color as your background.
3. Background color selected After you select the background color, your palette should like this picture. The eraser tool only uses the background color.
4. Eraser toolbar You can now click on the eraser tool. Once you do, you will see the eraser toolbar open at the top of the image. You can choose from a complete array of brushes and change the opacity if you desire. In this case we chose a large brush at 100% opacity. Move the brush over the image area to erase the artifact.
5. Final image Once you have completed the procedure, zoom out to normal size to see the impact on the picture. In this case we removed the artifact from behind Jerry Garcia's head removing a distraction from the image.

Tips & Warnings

• Remember you can erase with any color as you would a brush.
• It is really best used for removing artifacts. Use the other paint and airbrush tools for more detailed work
• For finer work use the airbrush tool where you can also select pressure and feather in to the edges.