Expert: LizaL - 11/24/2004

Question
I use Paint shop pro ver. 7, but i know that photoshop works the same way. My question is "how do I crop out a sky or trees to use in another picture? Or to replace a sky behind a bunch of trees. Thanks petev

Answer
Hi Pete,

Not long ago somebody asked me the same thing, and I'm going to kind of use the same answer. But bear in mind, there are several ways to do this. If what I've posted doesn't work well for you, please post back and I'll go over a different method.

The guy who asked me this question a while back referred to a tutorial that can be found at this link:
http://www.evolt.org/article/Separating_an_object_from_its_background/22/43914/i...       

And here's what I told him:

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I followed the tutorial you mentioned and thought of several things as I did so. The first is possibly why the tutorial didn't work, and then I added two suggestions you might want to try.

1. The reason you might not be able to put in a new background could be because you're not putting your selection into a new layer. Once you've made your path with the freeform pen tool, and made the line into a selection, go to the Layer pulldown menu at the top of the window, and selection New>Layer Via Cut. This puts your selection in its own layer. Now either hide or delete the old layer that your selection used to be on. Add a new layer, below your selected item (the one you made with the freeform pen tool), and you can put whatever you want on it.

The tutorial's author mentions doing this, but he doesn't make this point really clear -- and it's a big point to make!
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Here are a couple of other tips I had mentioned, not related to that tutorial:

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2. If you're in the learning stages of Photoshop, you could also consider using the Extract filter. It's pretty easy to use, and gives you a good idea of how to change backgrounds.

With your image file open, go to Filter>Extract, and you'll see your image in the window. Use the Highlighter tool (it's on the top left, and looks like a marker), and draw all around the part of your image you want to take away from its background. To make a really tight selection, you can adjust the brush size (under Tool Options, on the right side of the screen), and also zoom in and out to see what you're doing.

When you're happy with your selection, use the Paint Bucket tool, which will now be available as the second tool on the left side of the palette. Click inside your selection, and you'll see it fill with a solid color (whichever color is in your preferences for this filter -- you can change this over on the right, under Tool Options). You can now Preview what your selection will look like, or hit OK and go for it! Your image will appear in its own window, without the old background.

This is sometimes viewed as a rough-and-ready way of taking something out of its background, but it works, and it's also easier if you're kind of new to Photoshop.


3. Quick Mask is an easy and quick way to make a selection, then take it out of a picture. Click on the Quick Mask icon on the tool palette -- it's right below the color swatches, on the right. It looks like a dark rectangle with a solid white circle in it. Select this to enter Quick Mask mode.

Now choose a brush. Paint the part of the picture you want to remove, making sure your brush mode is Normal, and at 100% opacity. When you're finished, click the icon beside the Quick Mask icon to return to standard mode. You'll see that you have an inverted selection where you painted, so now all you have to do, in order to change the background to a solid color or gradient (as in the tutorial you were working with), is use the Fill command. You could also invert your selection at this point, select it and drag it, or copy/paste it to a new document.

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As I said, there are a few other ways to do this, so if these don't help, let me know!

Lisa