Help.....How to "cut" a picture

T

taracotta7

New member
I am curious about how to do the AWESOME technique of cutting out around an image in a photo. What is this technique called???? Clipping? Extracting?I can't seem to get it.....especially around hair!!!

I use PSE 6. I have used the lasso tool and deleted what I don't want. It just doesn't look good. Does anyone have any suggestions or a link to a great tutorial? I am dying to do this on my LOs!!!!

Thanks!
Tara
 
I have tried just about every technique through tuts and the easiest for me it is just use a large eraser and then when you get close to the body/head zoom really really close and use a soft eraser on a lower opacity. That usually gets me a pretty good cutout.

Then to get the hair looking normal I use the a tiny pixel blur tool and pull it from the head out- and I go around the head that way so the hair doesn't look matted.

It is all about practice and what works for you. You might want to search on youtube for videos on it- I know there are some photoshop people on there that do awesome tuts- I think "photoshopmama" or something like that is really good. Hope that helps! Have fun!
 
No matter what little tricks or PS plug-ins I've tried, ultimately a really nice extraction comes down to lots of finicky work and patience. I would recommend using a layer mask rather than a straight eraser though. That way you can paint stuff back in any time you need to and it really helps you finesse the edge of your extraction until you are happy with it. Does Elements let you do layer masks?
 
Joan said:
No matter what little tricks or PS plug-ins I've tried, ultimately a really nice extraction comes down to lots of finicky work and patience. I would recommend using a layer mask rather than a straight eraser though. That way you can paint stuff back in any time you need to and it really helps you finesse the edge of your extraction until you are happy with it. Does Elements let you do layer masks?
Click to expand...


PSE doesn't have layer masks built in, but there is a plug-in called Grant's TOols that will allow you to do layer masks. LOVE IT! I can go find the link if anyone needs it!
 
I use my magnetic lasso tool. Just follow along the pic on the outside until you come to the beginning where it will connect. Go to edit and copy or cut, I like to copy so I don't lose it and have to start over again. Paste it to a blank transparent sheet. If I have missed some areas around the pic that show when I put it into a layout, I go back to my extracted photo and use the lasso tool and crop off those ragged edges. Hope you were able to understand that. I use this method all the time because it's all I know.
 
Thank you everyone for your advise. I am on my way to try out these techniques! I don't know how much patience I have but I am sure going to try! LOL I just love the look of it!!!

If anyone else has tips on this....please keep posting them! :)
 
I am not that good at it so I don't really know why I would even post but the 2 times I have done it I used the Lasso tool to go around the object and deleted the background stuff and then got in real close and went around the edges with my eraser tool to clean up any jagged edges and then went back around with my blur tool to smooth it all out. I have no clue what I am doing so you probably don't want to follow my advice LOL but I have been happy with my results so thought I would share.

It is very time consuming and why I have only done it 2 times but I have seen some amazing LO's done with extractions!
 
I use the quick select tool in cs3 and then go back in with an erasor, seriously takes me all but 10 minutes if that and im always super happy with my extractions. I think the key is just patience and practice.
 
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