Photoshop has three tools for making selections: The Marquee, Lasso and the Magic Wand. When I run courses on Photoshop, tools like the magic wand and the clone tools are usually the ones which everyone finds the easiest to start using because they give such immediate results. The Magic Wand works by selecting colours within the image adjacent and similar to any pixel that you click on. Pixels of dissimilar colour act as barriers to selection and so the selection ripples outwards from the point you click on.

As you can imagine, you will not normally completely select your intended subject with one click when you are using the magic wand to make selections. Typically, you will select part of the area that you want and you will then need to add and subtract from the selection, perhaps switching to the other selection tools from time to time. Photoshop offers you two ways of modifying a selection: you can either use modifier keys on you keyboard or activate the modifier icons on the options panel normally displayed below your menu bar.

To add more pixels to your selection, hold down the Shift key while clicking with the Magic Wand on a part of the image which is not yet selected. To subtract from the selection, hold down the Alt key and click on the part of the selection which you wish to deselect. The selection modifier icons are situated on the left of the options panel. There are four of them: new selection, add to selection, subtract from selection and select intersection. These icons effectively allow you to change selection mode on a permanent basis. Thus, for example, you could click on the second of the four icons when using the Magic Wand and click continually on different parts of a subject until it was completely selected.

A simple trick for selecting a subject against a uniform background such as a wall or the sky is to use the magic wand to select the background and then invert the selection by choosing Select – Inverse. A slight variation on this technique is to make a rough selection which completely encloses the subject as well some of the background and then to use the Magic Wand in subtract mode to remove the background from the selection.

You can control the number of pixels which the Magic Wand selects when you click on part of the image by changing a setting called tolerance. Tolerance determines how far a pixel can vary from the pixel that you click on and still be included in the selection. The default tolerance is 32 and the maximum is 255.

I have been looking around online the last few days, trying to get how to fix my Xbox 360. I’ve had my console since launch day two years ago, and it is often worked fine. Then a last week, without caution, it just died on me. I know lots of folk who have had it happen to them, so it wasn’t a complete surprise. But that does not make it any simpler to accept.

Obviously my guaranty’s expired, so it was no good going to Microsoft to fix my Xbox 360. I discovered they’d do it, but it would end up costing me something like $140 to get it done. And that does not even include shipping. Anyhow, they told me it would take up to 8 weeks to get back to me, and I just didn’t want to be without it for that long.

So that’s why I’ve been looking around online. I’d come across some sites that claimed to supply techniques to fix Xbox 360s. One of them advised I wrap my console in a towel. I am virtually ashamed to claim I tried it, but I was desperate to get my Xbox up and running again. As you can most likely guess, it did not fix my Xbox 360.

Another bunch of sites suggested different positionings for the power adapter, announcing it would allow better air circulation. I followed all their instructions, but nothing they advised would fix my Xbox 360. Maybe it appeared to be a blessing that all these sites and strategies failed me, as it compelled me to keep looking round for a technique to fix my Xbox 360. Ultimately , I found just what I was looking for.

It’s called The Xbox 360 Red Light Fix Pro Gamer Edition. I came across their web site, and I was pretty impressed with their claim that I’d have my Xbox 360 running again within two hours if I followed their advice. I did not think it might work – not for a 2nd – but I thought it was worth a shot (I was at the stage where I was definite I’d have to return my console to Microsoft and pay the extortionate fee for them to fix my Xbox 360 ) .

Anyway, I went ahead and gave The Xbox 360 Red Light Fix Pro Gamer Edition a shot, and guess what? It worked!

Just like their guarantee announced, I was gaming again in less than two hours. And virtually seven days later and everything’s still working well. I used to be a bit worried that I wouldn’t be in a position to follow the instructions to perform the fix, but I was pleasantly surprised to find the Xbox 360 Red Light Fix Pro Gamer Edition comes with really simple video instructions that show you precisely what to do.

Like I said before, I possess a few friends whose consoles also died. I introduced 2 them to The Xbox 360 Red Light Fix Pro Gamer Edition, and they’ve had success too. A few of them had given up hope of ever finding a technique to fix their Xbox 360s, but to this point the success rate is incredible.