Photoshop Tutorials- Extracting Images

So I have some old basic usage tutorials for photoshop, figured Id post them up...Not sure if Ill make some new tagger tutorials, but it is a possibility...

Ok so pretty much anything you create , unless you do abstract work or draw, is going to need some outside images. These images are called stock. There are many sites set up for stock images some are free, and some you must buy. They all have licenses and restrictions. A good resource for free stocks is ...

http://www.sxc.hu/

*note be sure to read all licenses before using any stocks

Once you have chosen some images you like that fit the theme you wish to work on ...there is a pretty good chance you will want to extract pieces of that image for use while discarding others. Today Im going to show you one of the ways you can do so.

Quality and image size matter alot, the larger and clearer the image you start with the better the end results will be.

http://img518.imageshack.us/img518/7662/58913415626622im2.jpg

This is the image Ive chosen to extract and work with today.

Lets start up photoshop...

Once you open PS click file and open

Now a window will pop up showing a folder on your computer usually images are stored in my documents or my pictures. Find and choose the image you want to work with and click it,the 1st click will give you a preview of your selection the second will open it in photoshop.

Now you want to get ready to extract your image...

Click Filter and you should see an Extract option.

Click it and your image will open in a new window inside photoshop.

http://img293.imageshack.us/img293/4153/extractdu1.gif

As you can see Ive jumped ahead a little in the image so now Im gonna explain what I did. If you look in the top left hand corner you will see a tool that looks like a marker, you will use this to outline the image you want to extract. You can see my green outline. Now on the right side there are brush adjustment tools depending on the edge on the image you are extracting you may want to adjust this a little. These are pretty much personal preference and you will want to experiment with it yourself for best results.

Once you've outlined your image go back to lefthand corner and grab the paintbucket tool, and simply fill in the image you want to extract. The blue area is what Ive chosen to extract. If your whole image highlights chances are you didnt completely outline the image, if there is a space anywhere it will think you want to extract it all.

If you make a mistake while outlining simply grab the eraser tool in the left hand corner and erase any outlines youve made.

OK so now we want to hit extract...

http://img412.imageshack.us/img412/1686/extractedow3.gif

YAY ...an extracted image...

Sometimes when you extract an image tho the edges arent exactly perfect so you may want to go back now and tidy them up. If you over extracted areas dont panic we can fix that too, using the history brush tool.

Simply select that tool at the top of the page there is a bar for adjusting any tool you are using...again all personal preference and something you can play with . Now take your history brush and anywhere you feel you cut too much of the image simply run it along that edge. Dont overdo it you will only make yourself more work in a minute when you come back to clean the edges. WOW ...look at that the image you erased is magically reappearing :-o .

*Note..you may find you need to zoom in and out while working on perfecting image edges. You can find this option under View.

Ok clean up time ...we are gonna want to grab our polygonal lasso tool. As you can see again there are options to adjust it please make sure feather is set to 0. Feathering kinda rounds the edges you select...and we want a nice clean sharp edge so no rounding today.

                                 

Pick a starting point along an image edge once you click it will form an anchor, simply continue this process of creating anchors along the outline of the image. Remember if the image is complex this could be pretty time consuming so start out with something easy. Also the brush pressure during the extraction step can make this process alot easier if you find the right pressure. If the brush is set too light you will probably still have quite a rough edge to clean up. As you can see mine really isnt that bad...I got lucky . You can choose to try and outline the whole piece at once ..I dont really recommend this as your eyes and hands may get tired. I prefer to work in small areas.

Once you have an area outlined go to top of screen and click Edit then Cut, this will cut out and remove the area you have selected.

http://img518.imageshack.us/img518/9830/untitled1np5.gif

If you happen to choose to outline the whole image, you need to add a step because you dont want to cut that image...you want to cut its surrounding areas. So go back up to top menu and find Select and then Inverse you will now see you image outlined BUT if you look closely there is a second outline along the frame edge. Now when you go to cut it will remove the stuff between the 2 outlines in fact cutting everything EXCEPT the original outlined image.

YAY our image should be all cut out now..and we are ready to use it. For this tutorial Im just going to slap it onto a background image. So I chose another stock image that I thought would fit. And have opened it in photoshop. So I now have 2 seperate images in photoshop, this is fine when you want to work on an image simply click that image and it more or less get brought to the top to work on.

http://img176.imageshack.us/img176/2108/74782925602971my4.jpg

First of all when most photos are opened in photoshop they are locked as a background. Its easier to work and edit images if you unlock it. You can do this by going to Layer and Duplicate Layer. Basically you are duplicating the layer you are working on then go back and select the locked background layer and delete it. *Note if you are having trouble working with some images either extracting or editing check to make sure the mode is set to RBG color Image/Mode/RBG Color.

http://img518.imageshack.us/img518/5279/untitled1jd5.gif

Getting impatient yet?? Dont worry the end is near..I promise :-D

Last stage is adding the cut out image to our background..you can do this a few ways. Either you can hit Select/Select All/Edit/Copy the cut out image then Edit/Paste it to the background OR you can simple click the cutout layer and drag it onto the new background image.

http://img518.imageshack.us/img518/3569/untitled1bv1.gif

Ok so you may have to resize the cutout a bit to fit the new image...you can do this by Edit/Transform/Scale or you can resize the original before pasting it by using Image/Image Size. Just be sure whichever method you use that you do NOT stretch or distort the images proportions.

Anyways as you can see I kinda cheated on my edges so now Im gonna have to go back and clean them up like I explained to you. Or I could use my eraser tool but it takes a pretty steady hand. Chances are you may need to use it a bit tho to soften your edges. So just set it to a low opacity and carefully clean your edges. Anytime you dont like something youve just done just click Edit/Step Backwards or Edit/Undo. Undo will only undo the very last action, whereas Step Backwards will allow you to undo multiple steps. It will only go back so far so correct as you go.

So Ive resized my image and here is the final new image.

Keep in mind this is not perfected as Im doing it as I write this

You can either save images as jpg or gif, depending on the quality you want. JPG allows for a higher image quality. One last quick note MAKE SURE YOU SAVE ALL PROJECTS ON PSD FORMAT AS WELL WITH ALL LAYERS INTACT ...this makes for easier editing later on if you decide to do more to the image.

If you have any questions feel free to post. When cutting images you can completely skip the extract step and cut the image with your polygonal lasso tool but I find using extract is pretty quick and easy and cuts down on clean up alot. Another way to cut out images is using masks, but thats gonna have to wait for another day .