I have a Photoshop layer that is transparent except for a black figure. The black figure is solid black, but fades to transparent at the edges. I need to change the figure from black to a gradient. The magic wand tool selects each pixel all-or-nothing, so when I magic wand the black are and do a gradient on the selection, I wind up with jagged edges. Is there a way to make my selection's opacity equal to the underlying image's opacity? Or is there a better way to do this?

Ctrl+click on the image thumbnail.

Perfect! Thanks.

You can also hit the little lock at the top of the layers pallete. This will make it so that any modification you make is to the parts of the layer that currently have some sort of pixel in it.

Scott