Masking Techniques

There's a lots of different techniques to isolate an object from the rest of the image in Photoshop

The method you decide to use depends mostly on the contrast of the object vs the background. One first tip though, the bigger the picture is, the better masking result you will get... so, DO NOT resize your image to web-size until you're done with the masking. One more tip is to Select > Feather and make a Feather Radius of 1 pixel to get rid of any sharp edges

1. Magic Wand or Magic eraser
In this first example it's easy to use the magic wand and the result will be almost perfect at the first attempt.
Just click outside the object with the Magic wand tool and hit delete. In this case I used tolerans 50.

In this case you can also choose to use the Magic eraser tool with the same settings and you'll have the same result.
Just click with the Magic eraser tool on the background, and you're done.
(Were do I find the Magic eraser? well, click and hold down the Eraser icon in the toolbar to access it)

2. Magic Wand - Add selection

When the contrast on the object is good, but the background is a bit various you can do as follow:

Again we use the tolerans 50. Click the background with the magic wand tool, then hold down the shift-key on your keyboard and click again on the parts that is not selected, repeat this until the whole background is selected.

 Then hit delete and you're done

3. Lasso tool + Quick Mask

When the contrast between the object and the background aren't that good, you can use the Quick Mask. Here's how:

This is the original image


Use the Lasso tool to draw a selection around the object. You don't have to be very precise when you do this since you can fix all errors with the Quick mask.

Click the "Quick mask" symbol and have black as forground color.

This is how it will look.

Use the brush tool to add mask and the Eraser tool to remove mask

When you're done click the edit in standard mode

Now, go to Select > Feather and set it to radius 1 pixel. Cut and paste into your new background.

4. Pen tool
If you want the selection to be more accurate right away you can use the Pen tool instead of the lasso.

Choose the Pen Tool and make sure that "Paths," not "Shape layer," is selected. Then, start using the Pen Tool to create a path around the object.

When you have made it all away around, click the Paths palette and click the little arrow in the top right corner.

And make a selection.

5.The Extract way
This technique is very usefull when there is hair or fur to mask

Go to Filter > Extract.

The Extract dialog box will appear. With the Brush tool selected, draw an outline around the object you wish to extract. The outline should overlap both the object and the background. The outline will be highlighted.

When you've completed the outline, (still in the Extraxt dialog box) change to the Paint Bucket tool.

Fill the areas that you wish to keep with the paint bucket tool.
Click Ok and you're done masking. Cut and paste your object into a new background.