As you can see from the next example, when you set the tolerance to 5, only the colour you click and very similar tones near it are selected.

Whereas when you set the tolerance to 115, much more is included in the selection. You will almost definitely need to use trial and error to work out the best tolerance for your needs.

To increase your selection you can hold down the shift key and click on the other areas you want to include.

As those elements have been selected you will see from the example that only areas within the parameters of our selection are affected.

Let’s use a realistic example of when we might need to use this tool. Since the photograph is on a plain background there is a great opportunity to transform the entire shot by placing it onto an alternative background.

Next you’ll need to paste the contents from the original image into the new transparent canvas.

Now we need to remove the background. Use the wand tool to select the white space then tap delete to remove it. Include all areas by holding down shift and tapping each section of the image (above and below the branch, as well as the space between the robin’s legs).

Now you can either paste a background layer behind the robin, or move the robin onto a background. We’re going to copy our robin onto a new file. Double check that you’ve got rid of all the old background before you move on, because it will be easier to clean up at this stage.

As you can see, once we pasted the robin into our new image and reduced the size of the robin using the ‘transform’ menu option. We were able to scale the robin accordingly to it’s natural surroundings and place it into a suitable position.