AFTERGLOW | Night 7 | Tue Oct 13

Cut It Out

Selections night. You're lifting a subject out of one photo and dropping it into a whole new world, clean enough that nobody can tell.

Marquee & LassoQuick SelectionObject SelectionMagic WandSelect SubjectAdd / subtractFeatherSelect and MaskSave to channel

What a complete project looks like

Picture a photo of a dog, a cat, or you, lifted off its original background and standing in a totally different place: a neon city, a beach, outer space. It looks like it was shot there.

The edges are clean: no halo of the old background, no chopped-off ears or paws.
The fur or hair looks soft and real, not like a paper cutout (that's Select and Mask).
Your selection is saved in the file as an Alpha channel, so you can load it back any time.
The cutout is on a layer mask, not erased. Nothing got deleted.
You hand in two files: .psd (the recipe) and .jpg (the meal).

Layers panel, top to bottom: Subject (with a mask), New World, and the old Background hidden or gone. Channels panel: one channel named Subject.

Grab two photos

Free, no account. One subject with fur or hair, one new world to put it in.

Subjects on Pexels Worlds on Unsplash

Cold open: the selection toolbox

Every selection tool answers one question: how do you tell Photoshop where the edge is?

You draw it: Rectangular / Elliptical Marquee (M), Lasso, Polygonal Lasso, Magnetic Lasso (L).
You paint it: Quick Selection (W). Brush over the thing, it grows to the edges.
You point at it: Object Selection (W), Select Subject. Photoshop's AI finds the thing.
You pick a color: Magic Wand (W), Select > Color Range. Great for plain skies and walls.

Hold Shift to add to a selection. Hold Alt to subtract. That's half the exam right there.

The build

Done with this step

Self-check before you turn it in

In or out. Every box gets a check, or it's not done yet.

You made the warm-up selection with three different tools (step 2).
The subject is cut out with a layer mask, not erased.
You used Select and Mask, and the fur or hair edge looks soft, not jagged.
No halo or leftover chunks of the old background.
The selection is saved as an Alpha channel named Subject.
The subject sits in a new background and is sized so it looks like it belongs.
Saved as LastName_CutItOut.psd with layers intact.
Exported as LastName_CutItOut.jpg.

AFTERGLOW | Moonlight Dojo | glow.darien.games
Stuck? Raise a hand. That's what the room is for.