CC2018 - Magic Wand tool selection problems

[Dave_Marquez]

When working on a transparent layer, the magic wand tool will select all non-transparent pixels, failing to distinguish between very opaque and nearly transparent pixels:

with a white background layer to better show the contrast between the opaque and nearly transparent pixels:

I've controlled for tolerance, selection size, etc. I've also gone through all the preferences that seem relevant but can't find a solution.

Anyone else had this issue or is there some setting I may have overlooked?

[John T Smith]

Please post the name of the program you use so a Moderator may move this message to the specific forum

-A program would be Photoshop or Dreamweaver or Muse or Premiere Pro or ???

[Dave_Marquez]

my bad - I'm using Photoshop CC 2018 ( v.19.0)

[Here is the list of all Adobe forums... https://forums.adobe.com/welcome]

[Moved from generic Cloud/Setup forum to the specific Program forum... Mod]

[gener7]

Have you tried increasing the Tolerance from 0 to 7, 10, or 14?

Gene

[Dave_Marquez]

yes, i've adjusted the tolerance from 0 all the way up to 100, as well as varying where I click for the selection (the opaque black line, the low opacity part of the line, as well as the transparent part of the layer).  all to no avail. 

[Barb Binder · Accepted solution]

The Magic Wand is a color-based selection tool and those pixels are all black (albeit a light tint of black) so even a tolerance of 1 will pick up everything black. How about the Quick Selection tool?

~Barb

[Dave_Marquez]

ah - strange I'd never noticed this before.  thanks!

and yes, I can use the quick selection tool to select just the opaque pixels.  much appreciated.