The Powers of the Eraser

What artist’s toolbox would be complete without an eraser? None that I know of. But Photoshop provides not just one eraser, but three — the Eraser tool, the Background Eraser tool, and the Magic Eraser tool.

Working with the Eraser tool

The Eraser tool is the sixth tool from the top on the left side in the Toolbox, and it lets you erase in a couple of ways:

• Erasing in an image with only one layer: If you drag with the Eraser tool in an image that contains only one layer, the tool paints in the currently selected Background color, which is by default white.

• Erasing in an image with more than one layer: Drag the eraser on the background layer, and the eraser paints in the Background color, as usual. But on any other layer, the pixels you scrub with the Eraser tool become transparent, revealing pixels on underlying layers. This assumes that the Lock Transparent Pixels option is unselected in the Layers palette. If you select Lock Transparent Pixels on the Layers palette, the Eraser tool paints using the Background color. For more about layers, check out Chapter 7.

• Erasing back to a selected step in the History palette: Hold down the Alt key (Option key on a Mac) and drag the Eraser tool to erase back to a selected step in the History palette. I explain this feature further in the section “Erasing away the present” later in this chapter.

• Changing the size of the eraser: Change the brush size specified in the Brushes palette or the Brush Preset picker. Use the bracket keys [ and ] to make the brush size larger or smaller.