Photomanipulations using paths as selections

[Flep]

The last time we saw how to retouch a photo of a face with Photoshop CS3 so create a particular effect like scary eyes.

Today, Edoardo Gioè presents photomanipulations using paths as selections.

In this tutorial we will examine how to use paths to select determined areas of photos to manipulate them as we wish.

We will start by using a simple photo of a girl:

What we want to do is keep the girl but get rid of the background and change it to something else.

In order to achieve this we will zoom in and use the pen tool and start drawing the outlines of the photo, just like this:

After a while you’ll come up with a path which should look pretty much like this one:

What you want to do now is select the "Paths" palette in the layers panel and select your shape there.

Then just click on the icon at the bottom to "load Path as a selection".

As you see you will now have the girl selected.

Go back to the layers tab and bring yourself on the layer containing the photo.

Duplicate the selection onto a new layer by hitting CTRL+J on the keyboard.

Delete or de-activate visibility in the original photo layer and add a background layer containing anything you wish!

While it looks decent enough already you will surely notice that the outlines stick out against the background a little bit too much:

In order to fix this problem what we will do is load the selection again just like we did before and then invert this selection by going to Select -> Inverse (or by hitting Shift + Ctrl+ I).

We will now right click in our selection and click "Feather" and choose a radius of 10 pixels.

This will smoothen the edges a lot and blend the image much better into the background

With the use of this simple yet effective technique you can create very complex photo collages and manipulations.

It is also very used in advertising and web design. Enjoy!

Edoardo Gioè

Download source PSD