Photoshop Elements 5: The Missing Manual

318 Photoshop Elements 5: The Missing Manual

The Paint Bucket

The Paint Bucket

When you want to fill a large area with color in a hurry, the Paint Bucket’s the tool

for you. It’s right below the Brush tool in the Toolbox. If you click it or press K to

activate it and then click in your image, the entire available area (either your whole

image or the current selection) gets flooded with color. It works something like the

Magic Wand: Just as the Magic Wand selects the color you click, the Paint Bucket

fills only the color you click.

Use this tool to change the color of a solid layer with one click. Most of the

Options bar settings for the Paint Bucket are probably familiar:

• Fill. Choose to fill the area with the foreground color (page 195) or a pattern

(page 245). You can choose from any of the existing patterns (listed in the

Pattern drop-down menu on the Options bar). Or you can create your own,

just as you would with the Pattern Stamp (see page 247).

• Mode. Use the Paint Bucket in any blend mode, as explained later in this chap-

ter on page 322.

• Opacity. 100-percent opacity gives you total coverage; nothing shows through

the paint you put down. Lower the percentage for a more transparent effect.

• Tolerance. This setting works the same way it does for the Magic Wand (page

116). The higher the number, the more shades the paint fills.

• Anti-alias. This setting smoothes the edges of the fill. ...