This tiny tutorial is meant to help others as well as myself.
While out downloading some free AI kits I notice little mistakes. I believe these are not out
of not caring or laziness; but just simple mistakes. As I too also make mistakes. I am just sharing
what I have learned so better to help others…
When cleaning my AI I often use the magic wand to check my work.
I also use a new layer of color under my image so I can hopefully see extra pixels,
ghost pixels, spots left behind from the background remover sites.
It is good to use several different colors, viewing how my image looks against
different colors. Black, White, Grey, Orange …
When I preview an image in a kit before I open it, I sometimes see extra spots not cleaned.
But I don’t see them when I open the image (viewed against the transparent background).
I think this is where people make the mistake and don’t see these extra spots left behind.
This is also why I use the magic wand. After i’m done cleaning, before I save my image.
I click the wand anywhere in the background and see if I’m getting marching ants around
anything I don’t notice.
If I were cleaning this image, theres not too much going on in that background
at first glance.
Lets look closer though.
Did you catch that stray pixel?!!
This technique is also extremely effective when creating signature tags.
Sometimes masks or whatever we are working with my have stray pixels,
faded areas we didn’t notice. So its always a good idea to do some double checking.
Sometimes a mask is cut off on the edges and we don’t notice it until we are
all finished and its posted in public view. Embarrassing….
This Tiny Tut is written by Julie Jenks on September 16, 2025
as a helpful instruction.
