Friday, August 27, 2010

Erase an area in Paint.Net using the Paint Bucket

There might be an easier way to do this but I couldn't find it and it took me forever to work this out so I hope that it helps someone else as well.

Using the excellent and free Paint.Net image editing software I wanted to erase an area but I wanted to do it with the paint bucket so that it would would erase all the complicated edges that I couldn't get to.

Start off by selecting a small area that you're going to erase with the Rectangle Select tool and hitting the delete key. You now have a small checkered section.

Select the Color Picker tool and click in the just deleted area and this will set your color to transparent (deleted/erased).

Now click on the Paint Bucket tool and click in the area(s) that you want to erase with this tool and it will use the Paint Bucket to erase the area(s).

Please let me know if there's an easier way to do this.

 

5 comments:

  1. This doesn't work for me. Using the paint bucket with a transparent color seems to have no effect whatsoever. Do you know of any program settings that could cause this problem?

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  2. Do you have more than 1 layer in the image that you're editing? If so then perhaps you're editing the top layer and when you make it transparent the surface of the layer below it is "showing" though...? If that's the case then deselect all the other layers and do this on 1 layer.

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  3. For others reading this:
    Click the half-filled beaker icon in the paint bucket settings bar to change the mode from "Normal Blending" to "Overwrite". This will overwrite the filled area with the transparent color instead of applying the transparent color overtop.

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  4. Thanks to all for the helpful Paint.NET hint.
    You are gentlemen and scholars.

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  5. A much easier method is to use the Magic Wand tool, click in the region that you want to make transparent, and press the Delete key.

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