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Tip #16: Photo Extract Filter (Photoshop CS2)
By: Donna ChapmanYou will notice that the photo below is so cute except for the background, which is somewhat blah and tends to wash out her face.
This time we will use the extract filter to get rid of the background. Go to Filter > Extract
It will bring the photo up in another window and will be preset with a highlighter that you simply trace the edges of your object that you want to keep (don’t worry about parts that touch the edge of your photo it will assume you want that too.) You will want to adjust your brush size higher with a higher resolution photo.
After you have highlighted the edges choose the paint bucket tool on the top left of the extract window and fill in the portion you wish to keep.
Don’t worry that she looks like a little Martian baby just press preview (third button down on the right) to see what it will do and if it seems livable to you then press OK.
You can now go in and paint back anything that was removed that you did not want to be using the history brush and touch up any excess border with an eraser. In this case I will want to use the clone tool as well to remove that horrid looking date stamp.
Do not save this as a JPEG if you want the background to remain transparent in order to put a new background behind it. In Tip #17 I will show how to create a professional studio type background for this image.
Photoshop Tip #16: Donna Chapman donnaichapman@yahoo.com
