Cutting out complex objects. How to cut out an object in Photoshop
A "complex" object means an object with complex edges that cannot be selected with the Lasso tool. There are a lot of ways to cut out complex objects, you can familiarize yourself with two other methods at this link: How to cut out a complex object in Photoshop using blending parameters and using color channels.
In this lesson I will show you how you can select a complex object in Photoshop using the "Mask".
In this way, you can select and cut out, for example, a person from a photograph or other complex object. As an example, I took a photo of a running horse, which we will "cut out" from the background during the lesson.
1) go to Photoshop, open a picture (photo) of a horse by selecting "File" - "Open" from the top menu;
2) in the "Layers" window, with standard Photoshop settings, it is located in the lower right corner, you will see that a new layer has appeared with a thumbnail of the open image. This layer should be selected, as in the picture, if it is not selected, click on it 1 time with the left mouse button.
4) after that we take a brush of any convenient shape, set its "opacity" and "pressure" to 100% and outline the horse. In this case, the color of the brush after clicking on the "Quick Mask" will be black, thus tracing the object we will get its selection with a semi-transparent red layer. If somewhere you have climbed behind the fields with a brush, you can simply wipe it with an eraser. Adjust (increase, decrease) the size of the brush to more accurately outline all the details of the object. Things like hair, translucent film, fly wings, etc. you need to stroke with a brush with a pressure setting of about 50%.
5) so, we have an object selected with the "Quick Mask", this can be seen from the translucent red background, now we right-click on the "Quick Mask" icon, as in step 3. After clicking, we will see that we have selected everything around the object, i.e. everything that we stroked with a brush remained not selected, but everything around stood out - this can be seen in the picture along the dotted lines that cover the fields of the photo.
6) Now you need to select the object itself, you need to switch to the selection mode, for this we right-click on the "Selection" icon in the top left menu.
7) Now we hover the cursor over our object, press the right mouse button and in the menu that appears, select "Invert the selected area" and get the selected object we need!
8) now the object that we traced in the "Quick Mask" mode is selected and we can drag it or cut it to another layer. In order to cut an object on a new layer, as in paragraph 7, move the cursor over the object, press the right mouse button and select "Cut to New Layer" from the menu.
If you need to drag an object, then select the "Move" tool in the left menu, at the top, and hold the left mouse button, take our selected object and drag it.
TIP: You can use different kinds of brushes when selecting an object. For example, if you are drawing a mane (hair), then you should use a "soft" brush, and to outline the body - a "hard" one. In order to select a translucent object, for example, the wings of a fly, you need to adjust the pressure of the brush (decrease the pressure).
3 votesGood day, dear readers. One of the most useful and complex functions that Photoshop does is cutting out details. Thanks to her, the most amazing photographs are created.
Photoshop has a huge number of tools and individual methods that allow you to make such a kind of collages. If you want to achieve a cool effect that is indistinguishable from reality, then you need to know everything. Then you will get good results quickly. This is a rather complex topic, but believe me, it will come in handy more than once in life.
Now I will tell you about a lot of tools that will tell you how to cut an image along a contour in Photoshop, and which one to use in an individual case is up to you. Let's not beat around the bush for a long time. Try all of them and figure out for yourself what you like best. Let's get started.
An important moment, without which a miracle will not happen
Remember one very important point. If you need to cut some object out of the picture, the first step will almost always be to create a duplicate layer. It is very important. Remember this and bring it to automatism. Opened - made a duplicate of the layer. Even if it doesn't come in handy, it's okay. It's better than doing a ton of work and then seeing that nothing works because no duplicate has been made. This happened to me a hundred times.
Duplicate the layer.
This is a very common mistake. You try, you work, but it's all down the drain. This happens quite often, even with professionals. It flew out of my head and everything has to be done again.
If you have the opportunity from which you will subsequently cut something out, try to select a picture with a solid background - white, green, red. It doesn't matter, you need contrast, then it's easier to work.
If you are interested in lessons and want to learn how to master Photoshop at a professional level, I recommend you course of Zinaida Lukyanova — « Photoshop from A to Z ».
Online lessons will allow you to quickly master technical skills and move on to practice, gain valuable and personal experience, in the shortest period of time. You can quickly move from the category of beginners to specialists, and there, thanks to everything you can reach with your mind, you are not far from a professional!
Now let's get to know the tools. Each of them can come in handy in one case or another. I recommend that you find out all the possibilities, and then choose according to the situation what is more effective and when. You will learn over time.
Magic wand
I use the magic wand when I need to get rid of one color. In this case, everything will be fast and almost painless.
So, open the photo and create a duplicate of the layer.
There are 5 selection tools in Photoshop (magnetic, straight and simple lasso, quick selection and magic wand). They are located on two buttons. Hold down the left mouse button for a few seconds longer than usual and an additional menu will open.
We choose. Tolerance - 30.
Click where you want to remove the color.
Not everything stood out. Hold Shift and keep clicking as the selection is added to the existing one. Ready.
Press the Del button on your keyboard and turn off the visibility of the bottom layer (background).
Here is the result.
Now you can press simultaneously Ctrl + A, then Ctrl + C and paste the picture into another photo. I don't really like the result, I continue to click on the blue sea, which is visible through the fence, and press delete.
Here's what I ended up with. Quite good.
Fast selection
Open the photo and duplicate the layer.
Find the Quick Selection tool.
And we begin to slowly select objects. As you can see, here the sensitivity to color is less than that of the stick, and to objects it is higher. Usually I act on the sly: I selected a little - deleted (the del button).
By the way, you see, I made a screenshot about the duplicate layer, but did not click on the corresponding button. I had to do it again.
Now deleting is not a problem.
With the sky, it turned out much faster, since the contrast is higher. The beach is a more laborious process.
In this place, I generally had to dig deeper for about 3 minutes.
From this picture I need to cut out the sea, the person and his reflection in the water. If you cut a strip between the two desired objects, as shown in the screenshot below, then you can get rid of the bottom part with a quick selection in a second.
This is the result you can get. By the way, for this picture I also had to use a background eraser, but more on that later.
Magnetic lasso
The task of the lasso is slightly different. It does not cut, but just captures the desired part of the image. We copy and can be pasted into any picture.
Of course, as in the case of selections, it's cool when you have a solid background, but it's not so important anymore.
The magnetic lasso is most convenient for cutting out people. The line, as it were, sticks to the image we need and, if anything, you can always click to set the capture point.
So, open the image and make a duplicate. It is not necessary, but why not.
We select the required tool.
You can simply move the mouse along the contour, you can left-click in some places to put a point that will not move out. Over time, you will get used to it. In practice, it becomes more clear. If you make a selection at a large scale and do not see where to move the cursor further, just hold down the spacebar, and then drag the mouse down. As soon as you release the spacebar, the cursor converts back to a lasso.
You need to lead along the contour of the object, when you complete the circle, click next to the point from which they started and the blinking ants crawl over the object.
Copy and paste with Ctrl + C and Ctrl + V. Remove the visibility of unnecessary layers and can be saved in png format.
Almost ready. Using the same magnetic lasso, remove the background under the girl's tail and the triangle between the legs.
Done, This is the result in the end.
Straight lasso
I won't pay much attention to the straight lasso. Everything looks like magnetic, only the line doesn't stick. She's straight.
Copy and paste. Remove the visibility of the two unnecessary layers.
The result can be used like this.
Lasso
This instrument is not much different from the other two and will certainly appeal to the owners of the ideal cerebellum.
Open it up and duplicate it.
Selecting the lasso.
We outline the fragment by hand.
Letting go.
Copy, paste, done.
And in this video you can see 4 more very simple and cool ways to select objects in Photoshop: you will learn how to coolly cut people with curly hair (this is a very difficult and professional job, erase the background with an eraser (what I used for the Godzilla picture), highlight with a quick mask and pin the information about the lasso, all in 13.5 minutes!
A lot, but nobody wants to pay normal money for the equipment. Cool projects are important to customers, and they can only be created through experience. Don't worry if you can't do anything right now. It will take some time, you will do more than one job, but in the end you will become a professional. It's unavoidable.
Learn, learn and learn again. Practice should be daily. I can only recommend this wonderful course - “ Photoshop from scratch in video format ».
Instructions
If you need to cut out a rectangular part (for example, just your face) use the Crop tool. It's in the first column of the Tools panel, the third button from the top. Click on the button, then, by pressing the left mouse button, select the fragment that you want to keep. Correct the borders of the fragment. Press "Enter", the changes will take effect - the parts of the image that were outside the fragment will be cropped.
If you need to cut out a more complex fragment, for example, a shape along a path, use the Lasso tool (the second button from the top of the first column of the Tools panel). This is used when it is necessary to select a complex image fragment.
Press the Lasso button and do not let go - a menu for selecting selection options will appear.
- Normal "Lasso" - selects fragments of any shape. Press the left mouse button and drag along the desired path.
- "Polygonal Lasso" - selects with polygons, ie straight lines.
- "Magnetic Lasso" - serves to highlight parts of the image with a clear outline. Click on the border of the path and drag along it - the selection points will automatically snap to the outline of the object.
Select "Magnetic Lasso". And, as described above, click on the edge of the outline of the selected object and drag along it.
Having selected a small fragment of the object, close the path by clicking the mouse away from the edge of the object (not inside), return to the starting point and press "Enter".
Clear the selection by pressing the Delete key.
Proceed in the same way further until only the object you need remains. Individual background elements can be removed by selecting them with the Magic Wand tool (second column, second button from the top in the Tools panel) and the Delete button.
Select the object with the Rectangular Marquee tool. Copy it to the clipboard (menu "Edit" - command "Copy").
Place (menu "Edit" - command "Paste") on the desired image or background.
note
Answer: The magnetic lasso emits quickly, but very poorly. Another disadvantage: it selects pixel by pixel, and after deletion, it leaves a stepped edge. It is slightly better to highlight with a regular lasso. But it's also inconvenient. Only the Pen Tool qualitatively selects the area. Press F7.
Helpful advice
To do this, you need to know the property of some tools, with the help of which it is easy to learn and understand how to cut out a part of an image in Photoshop and move it to another, in order to obtain a better-quality collage. The most common Photoshop tool for cutting out an object (or outline selection) is the lasso, which comes in three types: a simple lasso, a straight lasso, and a magnetic lasso.
Sources:
- cutting in photoshop
If you want to cut out a part of a photo and paste it into another photo, then you will not find a better assistant than Photoshop.
It is better to use Magic Wand Tool to select objects of complex shape. To call it, press W. On the property bar, set the parameters by which the tool will distinguish the image from the background, and click the "magic wand" on the background next to the object. A selection area appears. On the property bar, click the Add to selection button - now the new selection will be summed up with the old one. Use your magic wand to mark new areas of the background until you have selected everything. To mark the background between the petals, left-click once, then hover over the selection, right-click and select Grow from the context menu. Repeat several times until the selection fills the entire area between the petals. Use the tool as many times as necessary so that only and remain selected.
Now you have the background selected around the object. To select an object, select the Select and Inverse items in the main menu.
If you want to cut, i.e. remove an object from the image, select Edit and Cut from the main menu or use the Ctrl + X combination. Then, instead of the deleted part of the image, its empty outline will remain. If you just need to copy an object in order to transfer it to another image, press Ctrl + C or select Elit and Copy from the main menu.
Related Videos
There are many tools for cutting in Adobe Photoshop, the scope of which depends on the shape of the object being cut. For example, cutting out a television is much easier than cutting out a human silhouette.
You will need
- - Adobe Photoshop
Instructions
Open the required photo in Adobe Photoshop: click the main menu item "File"> "Open" or use the hotkeys Ctrl + O. Or you can simply drag the photo from the standard Windows Explorer into the program itself.
If the object you are cutting has a simple ellipsoidal or regular quadrangular shape, the Rectangular Region and Oval Region tools are best. To start selection, hold down the left button on the image, drag the mouse in the desired direction, and then release.
Using the Rectangular Lasso tool, it is convenient to cut out an object whose outlines consist entirely of straight lines and corners. Left-click anywhere on the contour and, placing points on all protrusions and corners of the object, close the contour.
The Magnetic Lasso is a good tool for selecting complex objects, but it has one drawback that directly follows from its merits. The principle of this tool is the same as the "Rectangular Lasso" - point by point, you wrap around the object and eventually close the selection. But it is not at all necessary to put points in problem areas of the contour, because the "Magnetic Lasso" looks for them on its own, you just need to carefully move the mouse next to this place. This search is carried out due to the existence of a color difference between the object and the background (or other object), bordering it. And if there is no difference, then the instrument is "demagnetized" and gets confused - this is the drawback.
The finishing touch to cutting an object is to move it to the desired location. With the object selected using one of the tools described above, select the Move tool. Hold down the left mouse button on the object, drag where you want, and then release.
Related Videos
Helpful advice
To reset the selection, press Ctrl + D hotkeys.
Separating the image from the background is one of the most troublesome steps for novice Photoshop users. However, there are several ways to make an object stand out from the background, one of which is to create a selection based on one of the image's color channels.
You will need
- - Photoshop program;
- - image.
Instructions
Load the picture from which you are going to cut the object into a graphics editor and make the layer on which the image is located available for editing. To this end, use the Layer from Background option from the context menu that appears after clicking on a layer.
If you are going to transfer the cut-out picture to a new background, it will be most convenient to put this background in advance. Open the background image in Photoshop and paste it under the layer with the processed image.
After making the active layer with the processed image, open the channels palette. It can be located next to the layers palette. If the desired palette is not visible in the Photoshop window, open the Channels palette by applying the Channels option from the Window menu. By sequentially clicking on all three channels, determine in which of them the image is most contrasting. Most often, the blue channel is used to separate the subject from the background.
Duplicate the selected channel. To do this, use the Dublicate Channel option from the context menu or drag the channel onto the Create new channel button. Invert the image that became black and white after the operation with the channel, using the Inverse option from the Adjustments group of the Image menu.
The part of the image that you need to get rid of the background is colored after inverting to white. Adjust the contrast so that the cropped object is completely white and the background is dark. This can be done using the Brightness / Contrast, Curves or Levels filters from the Adjustments group. You can additionally tint those parts of the picture with white that should remain after removing the background. Select the Brush Tool for this.
Switch to the layers palette by clicking on the Layers tab and create a layer mask using the Add layer mask button. Edit the mask if needed. In order to remove the remaining fragments of the background, paint them over the mask with black color. If a part of the image that should be visible in the final image is hidden under the mask, paint the mask in this place with white.
Use the Save As option from the File menu to save the processed image with the mask and both layers to a psd file.
Related Videos
Sources:
- Two techniques for highlighting hair
The program Photoshop, due to its wide graphic capabilities, enjoys well-deserved popularity. One of the most common techniques for working in Photoshop is cropping an image and cutting out a part of an image for later insertion.
Instructions
Launch the program, then open the edited image by choosing the File tab from the menu. If you need to, select the "Crop" tool on the toolbar in the left part of the program window. Move the cursor over the image and click the mouse in the place where one of the corners of the future cropped image will be located - for example, the upper left.
Move the cursor down and to the right to define the size of the image. Don't be afraid to do it inaccurately, you will have the opportunity to correct the dimensions. Click the mouse, cropping outlines will appear on the edited image. You can change the dimensions by dragging the selected path in the desired direction with the mouse.
Having set the dimensions, move the cursor to the toolbar and select any tool. A message appears prompting you to confirm cropping. Click "OK", the image will be cropped. Save it in the required format: "File - Save". If you plan to post the image on the Internet, select "Save for Web". In this case, you can select its quality and "weight" (size in kilobytes).
Very often there is a need to cut out an image element for subsequent work with it. If you need a rectangular piece, use the Rectangular Selection Tool. Select the area of the image you need, then copy the selection - "Edit - Copy". Now you can paste the copied fragment into any image. To paste it where you want it, select the area you want with the Rectangular Selection tool.
In the event that the cut object has a complex shape, use the Pen tool to select it. Select it, then activate the Paths option at the top of the window. Having enlarged a fragment of the image to the required size, outline it with successive mouse clicks. Close the path, then right-click on it and select "Make a selection" from the context menu. Copy the selection: "Edit - Copy". Now you can paste it into any image.
Related Videos
Sources:
- how to cut out a part of a photo in Photoshop
Helpful advice
Remember, if you accidentally captured part of the desired fragment during erasing, you can always undo the action by pressing the Ctrl + Alt + Z key combination from the keyboard, or by selecting the corresponding option in the Edit-Undo toolbar - "edit - undo action".
Sources:
- how to cut a fragment in photoshop
Photoshop is a popular image-editing tool that helps you create a spectacular, memorable photo from ordinary amateur photography. One of the most essential skills for a photo editor is the ability to cut out an area of an image.
Instructions
Open the image in Photoshop using the shortcut Ctrl + O. Select the desired area using the Marquee Tool (Rectangular area) in the toolbar. Select the desired shape for the selection of the area. Select by holding down the left mouse button. A dotted frame appears.
Select the area of the image, if it has a complex shape, using one of three tools: Lasso Tool (Lasso), Magic Wand (Magic wand) or Pen Tool (Pen), which are also on the toolbar. To select with a lasso, draw a contour around the area. To select with a magic wand, click on the area.
To select with the pen, draw a curved outline of the area, use the Alt key to drag the curve handles (). Press Ctrl + Enter to create a selection. If necessary, switch to Quick Mask mode by pressing Q, paint over the area with a brush and press Q again.
To cut the pixels of an area, press Ctrl + X or Del on your keyboard, or go to Edit and select Cut. The area of the image will be cut out (that is, deleted), instead of it you will get an empty area filled with checkerboard cells or with a color from the color palette.
To cut an area and copy it to a new layer, go to the top menu tab Layer (Layers). Select the section New (New) and click on the inscription Layer via Copy (Copy to a new layer). You can also copy to a new layer by pressing Ctrl + J.
To cut out an area on the document so that instead of an area on the image there is an empty space, go to Layer, after - New and in Layer via Cut (Cut to a new layer). The area will be copied to a new layer, but this area will not be on the image itself. To not open the top menu tab, press Shift + Ctrl + J.
To cut out a certain area of a specific size without preliminary selection, press the C key, select the area, edit the cropping contours if necessary. Hit Enter. The area will be clipped without saving the rest of the image.
Helpful advice
When using the "Lasso" note that you can right-click inside the selection and select the desired clipping point.
Sources:
- How to cut out an object from a photo using Photoshop
Collages often require moving objects to a different background. It will be funny to place your figure on the shore of the blue sea or in a cage with a lion, replacing the boring reality in the form of an office or apartment.
Instructions
Before starting work, duplicate the photo so that all changes are made on a new layer - in this case, the main image will not be affected. Use the keyboard shortcut Ctrl + J or the Duplicate Layer command from the Layer menu.
The selection tool you choose depends on the background color and outline of the person's shape. If the background color is quite different from the selected object, it will be convenient to use the Magic Wand Tool ("Magic Wand"). On the property bar, set the parameters - brush size and tolerance (Tolerance), i.e. the difference between shades of color that the tool will ignore. The lower this indicator, the more selectively the Magic Wand acts.
Click on the photo around the human figure. To summarize the selections, on the property bar, click Add selection. Change the brush size and tolerance as needed. After all the background around the shape is selected, press Ctrl + I or use the Inverse command from the Select menu. To cut out a shape, apply the keyboard shortcut Ctrl + X.
You can use the tools from the group L - Lasso Tool ("Lasso") and the Magnetic Lasso Tool ("Magnetic lasso"). The "magnetic lasso" is very convenient to use when the selected object is noticeably different in color from the background. In this case, you simply click on the outline of the shape, release the key and outline the object - the tool "sticks" to the outline and determines itself where the background is and where the shape is.
If the color shades are not too different, in difficult places click on the selected object, setting the reference color. After the selection is closed, use the hotkeys to cut out the shape.
The Lasso tool doesn't have such complex settings - you have to trace the object yourself. Press Ctrl + Bacspace to undo incorrect steps.
Very often, when working with Photoshop, you need to cut out an object from the original image. It can be either a piece of furniture or a part of the landscape, or living objects - a person or an animal. In this tutorial, we will introduce you to the cutting tools and practice a bit.
We will split this material into two parts. In the first we will get acquainted with the tools that can be used for selection and subsequent cutting, and in the second we will practice using the most effective of them.
Selection tools
There are several tools suitable for cutting an image in Photoshop along a contour.
Fast selection
This tool is great for selecting objects with clear boundaries, that is, the tone on the borders does not blend with the tone of the background.
Magic wand
The magic wand is used to select pixels of the same color. If desired, if you have a solid background, for example, white, you can remove it using this tool.
Lasso
Straight lasso
The straight lasso is suitable if you need to select and cut out an object that has straight lines (edges).
Magnetic lasso
Another "smart" Photoshop tool. Reminds in its action "Quick Selection"... The difference is that "Magnetic lasso" creates one line that "sticks" to the outline of the object. Conditions for successful application are the same as for "Quick selection".
Feather
The most flexible and easy-to-use tool. It is applied on any objects. When cutting out complex objects, it is recommended to use it.
Practice
The first five tools can be used intuitively and at random (it will not work), and the Pen requires certain knowledge from the photographer. That is why we decided to show you how to use this tool. This is the right decision, since you need to learn right away right away so that you do not retrain later.
So, open the photo of the model in the program. Now we are going to separate the girl from the background.
- Create a copy of the original image layer and get to work.
- We take the tool "Feather" and put an anchor point on the image. It will be both starting and ending. At this point we will close the path once the selection is complete.
Note: Unfortunately, the cursor will not be visible in the screenshots, so we will try to describe everything in words as detailed as possible.
- As you can see, we have fillets in both directions. Now let's learn how to get around them. "Pen"... Let's go right. In order for the rounding to turn out as smooth as possible, you should not put many points. Set the next reference point at some distance. Here you have to determine for yourself where the radius ends approximately.
For example, here:
- Now the resulting segment must be bent in the right direction. To do this, put another point in the middle of the segment.
- Next, hold down the key CTRL, grab this point and pull it in the right direction.
- Upon completion of the selection, click inside the resulting contour with the right mouse button and select the context menu item "Form selection area".
Set the feathering radius to 0 pixels and click "OK".
This is a basic technique for highlighting complex areas of an image. In the same way we go around the whole object (girl). If, as in our case, the object is clipped (from the bottom), the outline can be taken out of the canvas.
Since the overwhelming majority of all cases of work in Photoshop is the processing of ready-made images, the lion's share of the program's tools is intended to perform this operation.
Filters (read about them in the previous lesson) are a fairly small and very easy-to-use part of them. In this article, we will break down the functions in a more complex way.
Since there are a lot of tools, I will not list the entire arsenal of the editor, but I will just analyze a common example of work - cut out a fragment of one picture and paste it into another.
We have the sea.
There is a seagull.
And we want the seagull to float over the sea.
Let's get started.
Preparation
At this stage, you need to open the source pictures and create a document to combine them.
1. First open the sea file. To do this, press the key combination Ctrl + O or execute the command File -> Open, in the Explorer window that appears, find the file with the sea, click on it and click the Open button.
2. Open the seagull file in the same way.
3. Create a new document measuring 760x475 pixels. To do this, press the keyboard shortcut Ctrl + N or run the File -> New command, enter the specified values in the Width and Height fields and click OK.
4. Now in Photoshop we have three documents open, you can navigate between them using the tabs.
Moving
Pictures from open files must be placed on different layers of the working document.
1. Go to the image with the sea by clicking on its title.
2. Select the entire image. To do this, either execute the Select -> All command of the main program menu, or simply press the Ctrl + A key combination. As a result, the picture will receive a frame, which means that it is selected.
3. Copy the selection by pressing the key combination Ctrl + C or in the main menu of Photoshop by executing the command Edit -> Copy.
4. Go to the working paper by clicking on its title.
5. Paste the copied picture - or press Ctrl + V, or select the Edit -> Paste item in the main menu.
6. The program has created a layer for the new material automatically. Rename it Sea by clicking on the layer name in the Layers panel, typing a new name and pressing Enter.
7. In the same way, copy and paste the image with the seagull into the working document: go to the picture by clicking on its title, select the entire image (Ctrl + A), copy it (Ctrl + C), go to the working document and paste the picture (Ctrl + V). The layer was also created automatically, rename it to Seagull.
As a result, our working document has acquired two new layers on which the original images are placed.
Transformation
We will talk about it in more detail, but for now we really need only one of its simple tools.
As you probably already noticed, the drawing with a seagull is much larger in size than the drawing with the sea. And the seagull itself is also too large for the chosen landscape - it will not fit into the scale.
To fix this, you need to reduce the entire seagull image to an acceptable size.
To do this, we will use the Free Transform tool, which allows you to change the shape and size of the picture.
1.Using the Move tool, move the image with the seagull so that the bird does not remain out of the frame and is fully visible.
3. Select the seagull layer: make sure it is active and press Ctrl + A.
4. In the main menu, execute the Edit -> Free Transform command, or press the Ctrl + T key combination.
5. Reduce the size of the picture to an acceptable one, paying attention to the size of the seagull - it should fit harmoniously into the seascape. To zoom out, drag the rectangles that appear in the corners of the picture. To resize proportionally, hold down the Shift key.
6. To complete the transformation, change the tool (for example, select the Move tool) and click the Apply button in the question window.
Select and cut
Now the most important thing remains - to cut the seagull so that it floats above the sea. True, in fact, we will not cut out the seagull, but the entire sky around it, that is, the bird, on the contrary, will remain, and everything from its picture will be deleted.
To cut, you need to select first, and this is the hardest thing to do. There are many tools for selection in Photoshop: various kinds of lasso, Quick selection, Selection of a fragment, etc. Each has its own narrow specialization and subtleties.
We will use the Magic Wand tool, which automatically finds areas with pixels of similar color and selects them.
1. On the tool palette, click the Magic Wand icon.
2. Pay attention to the parameters panel.
The number in the Tolerance field is responsible for the width of the selected color spectrum. For example, if the value is zero, the Magic Wand will select in the picture only those pixels that are identical in color to the selected one. If set to 16, the tool will select pixels 8 units darker and 8 units lighter than the selected one. In our case (the background contrasts well with the seagull), the value can even be equal to 100, the excess will not be highlighted anyway.
The button makes the borders of the selected area smoother, it must be pressed.
If the button is pressed, the program will select pixels only in areas adjacent to the selected area, that is, it will exclude the possibility of highlighting an area with similar shades in another part of the picture.
But it's better not to press the button, because then the Magic Wand will select an area on all layers, and not just one.
3. After making sure that the layer with the seagull is active, the Magic Wand tool is selected, and the previous selections are canceled (Selection -> Deselect). When you are convinced, click on the bird itself with the mouse button.
4. She stood out. But we need to remove not it, but everything around, so in the main menu, select the Select -> Invert command to select everything surrounding the seagull.
5. Now just delete the selection by pressing the Delete key. One seagull remained over the sea.
6. Execute the command Select -> Deselect.
7. Click on the Move tool icon and select the seagull layer (Ctrl + A).
8. Move the seagull to any place, if necessary or just want, and deselect.
Preservation
The most important thing left is to save the result to a file. Export the resulting image to your favorite format using the File -> Export command (we already talked about this in more detail in the very first lesson). In case you suddenly want to return to editing the picture in the future, save it in .PSD format.