Yeah, you know the drill. Share what you know - whether it's basic or complicated.

Using The Pen Tool:

(NOTE: My examples are just rough notes. I did them quickly to get this up and posted. The Pen Tool, in spite of the better precision you can get with cutting out, it's a very tedious process.)

I've found that this is even better than using the "Magnetic Lasso Tool" to cut out an image (to paste onto another image/background). Simply select the "Pen Tool" and play "Connect The Dots" around what you want to "select" & cut out.

- Say you have a person with their hand on their hip & their elbow extended, leaving a gap in that space, you want to finish playing Connect the Dots with the outside of the person first, then start a new game of it in the open spaces you have left that need to be cut out/removed. The result will be smooth lines around your "cut out".

Actually, they most likely won't be "exact", but they won't have been made an actual selection yet.

If at any point, you feel like you've "misplaced" a dot, ALT + CTRL + Z will take you a step backwards. I know older versions of PS will let you go into options and allow you to change how many "steps back" you can take, but as far as I know, CS6 will only allow up to 10 - & there's no way to change it.


Pen Tool 1.JPG2212

(that's what your image should look like once your finished with the Pen Tool. The Tool is obviously selected on the left hand side of the menu)

To make it into a selection, Right Click on the image and select "Make Selection" (there was no way for me to do a screen cap with the snipping tool with the menu and all that, sorry). You'll get an option to Feather it. Leave it at 0 for now, there's a better way to edit and smooth it out.

Once you've got it turned into a Selection, go to the "Select" Menu, then "Refine Edge". Going into this menu will not only render your selected cut out onto a blank background (for mine, it's white, but I can't remember if you can change that with the background paint color up in the color boxes), but it also allows you to adjust the smoothness of the selection, feathering, shifting the width of the selection, etc.

Pen Tool 2.JPG

(Obviously this is just a rough example, 'cuz there's no way I can make it look less shitty than the 10 minutes I spent on it).

Once you're done, you can copy and paste onto a new background or image.

Pen Tool 3.JPG

Now. Since I'm not quite done with this image, it brings me to another tutorial ('cuz what I've posted so far is shitty and I'm out of practice)..

Layer Masking:

After applying the copied image to the new background, look in the Lower Right Hand Corner. You'll see a rectangle with a circle in the middle - that's your option to create a layer/vector mask. Make sure the newly applied layer is selected in the layers window before you apply. Set your primary paint brush color to Black and choose a soft edge round brush.

You can adjust the size, hardness, and opacity to fit how you want to blend the two layers/ refine your selected & copied image even more. Layer masking allows you to further erase details of what you copied in order to make it look better (if that makes sense).

Now. Another edit that I'm obsessed with: HDR Toning.

Flatten your image, then click CTRL + A (to select all), CTRL + C to copy selection, then CTRL + N (for new blank image, it'll be the same size as what you've been working with). CTRL + V pastes the image onto the new background. Flatten it. Then go to "Image > HDR Toning" - pick whatever you like best. Then again. CTRL + A to select & CTRL + C to copy.

Go back to your original image, CTRL + V to paste (it creates a new layer) - set it to something like Overlay or Soft Light and lower the Opacity.

Namie.jpg

I also added a gradient layer with a gradient I'd downloaded - again, adjusted it to like Soft Light and lowered the opacity and added the text.

(That's obviously Amuro Namie, one of my fav singers. heh.)

SO anywho. Add your tips and tricks! ^_^