erase tool while heads up digitizing

[JeremyOlynik1]

Hello,

I'm wondering if anyone knows of a third party tool or something built into ArcGIS 10x that will erase or clip an area of a polygon quickly and efficiently. I'm thinking something like the 'magic eraser tool' in Photoshop. I'm trying to manually digitize sand within reef communities and as it stands I'm digitizing a polygon over-top of the  the wider 'reef' polygon and then clipping the underlying data... all the while thinking that there has to be a better way of doing it as there are many areas. These are areas where image classification isn't working out well.

Any thoughts are appreciated thank you.

[JeremyOlynik1]

Sorry for not being clear, I'm trying to separate that sand that is within that polygon from the small fingers of coral that surround them.  The extract by mask tool would work if I was clipping a raster but i'm trying to create a sand/reef polygon based on the imagery.  It may be that I have to continue trying to classify it although I don't have access to the high resolution imagery as it is coming off an image server and the size is very difficult to work with when exported.

[MitchHolley1]

So, you're needing to digitize polygons around a certain area?  I don't think there is a tool that can do that considering how specific the polygons need to be. 

[JenniferMcCall4]

Have you considered using the Cut Polygons tool on the editor toolbar to digitize the areas you want to erase?

[DanPatterson_Retired · Accepted solution]

Make a donut and dump the hole as has been suggested earlier