Tolerance

The third of the three major options for the Background Eraser is Tolerance, which determines how different a pixel's color can be from the sampled color for Photoshop to erase it. You'll find the Tolerance option directly to the right of the Limits option in the Options Bar:

The default Tolerance value is 50% and that's usually a good starting point, but if you find that the Background Eraser keeps erasing part of the area you're trying to keep because the color of the background is too similar to your subject, try a lower Tolerance setting. If your background color is quite different from your subject, increase the Tolerance value.

I'm going to undo my previous steps with the Background Eraser so I can try again, and since my sky is quite a bit different in color from the tree, I'll increase my Tolerance value to 70%. I'll click to sample an area of blue sky with the target symbol, and this time, with the higher Tolerance setting, the Background Eraser is able to do a much better job with cleaner results:

Protect Foreground Color

Finally, if you can't seem to get the Background Eraser to erase the background in your image without erasing part of your subject as well no matter what Tolerance value you use, try the Protect Foreground Color option. Click inside its checkbox to select it:

This option allows us to sample a color from the image that Photoshop will protect, preventing it from being erased. The color you sample will become your Foreground color, hence the name Protect Foreground Color. In this photo below, the flowers are very similar in color to the background, causing the Background Eraser to erase part of the flowers along with the sky:

To overcome this problem, I'll first undo my last step, then I'll select the Protect Foreground Color option in the Options Bar. I'll hold down my Alt (Win) / Option (Mac) key, which temporarily gives me access to the Eyedropper Tool. Then, I'll click with the eyedropper on one of the flowers to sample that color. This will become the color that's protected:

If you look at your Foreground color swatch near the bottom of the Tools palette, you'll see that the color you sampled has become your Foreground color:

With that color now protected, I'll try again to erase the background around the flower. This time, things work out better:

Just remember to deselect the Protect Foreground Color option when you're done, otherwise the next time you use the Background Eraser, you could get unexpected results.

And there we have it!

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