Defringing Halos 4

8. The strategy is to make an anti-aliased selection of the toucan. This will give us the partially transparent pixels needed for the fringe. Since the transparency of this image was created over a white background we want to re-create the white background on this layer, then make a new selection using the Magic Wand. Start by setting the foreground color to white in the Toolbox, then select the Paint Bucket Tool (below left). Click the Paint Bucket Tool anywhere in the transparent area to flood-fill the background with white (below right).

9. After flood-filling the background the image should look similar to the one below.

10. Next, select the Magic Wand Tool . Then in the Options palette set the tolerance to 32 and check the "Anti-aliased" check box. This will give the selection an anti-aliased edge and will ensure that some of the pixels around the edge of the toucan image will be included in the selection. Anti-aliasing will cause the pixels around the edge to be partially transparent.

Defringing Halos 3

5. Accept the default width of 1 pixel in the subsequent dialog.

6. There is some improvement, but the fringe pixels were completely opaque (having no transparency) so the defringe command produced a jagged edge. Ideally we need to make the fringe pixels partly transparent, then reapply the defringe command. Click Edit > Undo to reverse the command and revert the layer to its previous state.

7. We are going to duplicate the layer containing the image of the toucan because we want to work on a copy of the layer in case we make a mistake. The quickest way to do this is to use the Layers palette and drag the layer onto the "New Layer" icon at the bottom of the palette (below left). Then hide all other layers either by clicking their visibility icons to the left of each layer or by Opt/Alt clicking the visibility icon of the new layer (below right). Make sure that the new layer copy is the active layer (highlighted layer in the Layers palette - below right).