How to extract an image from a background – and put it on another. Photoshop CS2 tutorial.

How to extract a background from an image – and put it on another.

This Tutorial was created using Photoshop CS2 Copyright NesCreationDesigns 2008

I am going to start with this image, I think this boy would look much more interesting on a more colorful background, don’t you?

If you notice in my layers pallet, I have my replacement background already under the image I’m going to extract. This is just so that I can see if I’m missing anything. You can use a solid color if you’d like, but this way I won’t have to add a background later.

Step 2, next I’m going to take a snapshot of my photo. Don’t miss this step as it will come in handy later! You take a snapshot by going to your history pallet, at the bottom there is a little camera icon, click on it. (it looks like this..)

After you click the camera icon, you will have snapshot 1 at the top of your history pallet:

Step 3, Next, you're going to want to choose the background erasure tool. It looks like this:

Your settings should be: (or similar to, depends on your image, but this is a good starting place.):

Limits: Discontiguous-Tolerance: 70%---Check foreground color.

Your brush size will depend on the part of the image you are working on. If you are doing hair strands, then you want your brush large enough to cover the hair that is sticking out and touching the background at the same time. Remember that the little cross inside your circle should only touch your background...NOT the hair!

Now with these settings set, go all the way around your image. Don't worry about all the other left over background, we'll get rid of that later. In this next image you can see I'm working all the way around my image.

After you have gotten all the way around, go ahead and select the majic erasure tool, tolerance set to about 20 and click on the leftover background. See? It's all gone! (You may have to do this in various spots if you have different color values in your background.)

You will also notice that earlier, you may have erased some of the actual image around the edges of the subject. Here's how we fix that:

Go ahead and take another snapshot of your image.

Now select your history brush tool. Thats this little baby:

Ok, Pay attention! I don't want to lose you here! You're almost done!

Check the box in snapshot 1 --- Then ---Highlight snapshot 2

Doing this will enable you to see your background AND what you need to replace, I am replacing his cheek here:

OK, you've gotten this far, and you're doing great!

Now select your burn tool:

Select your subject layer...and SLIGHTLY burn a soft edge around your image. (drop the opacity of your burn tool if it's coming out too dark. This will help the transition between the subject and the background.

I added a black vignette around my image above. I'll show you how to do that in a different tutorial.

Thanks for viewing! Please leave your comments! let me know you were here!

If you'd like to get some really cool backdrops, you can get them from My website