Magic Wand Doesn't Activate When Clicked

When I click magic wand & bring it to area I want to activate, I click & nothing...no animated dotted lines. Can anyone suggest what to do? I wanted to use gradient tool to add gradient color in background...now I can't. Any feedback?

select your magic wand tool, and look through all your options for it under the file, edit, image, and so on menu. try setting the tolerance to a number like 50 or 80 so it'll sample a wider range of colors. make sure that on those four little buttons that have those box graphics the first one "new selection" is selected. also make sure that contiguous is checked.

Another thing to remember when using the Magic Wand is that the eyedropper setting influence this tool also.
Set eyedropper sample size to point sample, then wand wont be influenced by surrounding colours, but set eyedropper to 3X3 or 5X5 to help when selecting more gradient tones.

that or maybe click Ctrl+H :D

[QUOTE=mihai]that or maybe click Ctrl+H :D[/QUOTE]

LOL. If that works that's when you kick yourself. :p