14
1
Start by choosing the Quick
Selection tool. The keyboard
shortcut is w, which doubles as the
key for the Magic Wand; press Sw
to toggle between the two. Drag the
tool over the body and head in a single
sweeping movement. There may be
some errors with the initial selection:
here, parts of the flag have been
included bottom left and bottom right,
and some of the uniform detail – the
buttons, the badge, and some ribbons –
have been omitted.
2
It’s now a straightforward matter to
add the missing elements – simply
drag over them with the Quick Selection
tool. To remove the unwanted areas,
such as the pieces of flag, hold O A
as you drag over these regions and they
will be removed from the selection.
There’s an option on the Options
Bar for this tool marked Auto-Enhance:
check this, and the selection will be
automatically smoothed as you drag.
6
There are two ways we can
fix this. The first is to use the
Decontaminate Colors feature, which
blends the color of the cutout into the
border area: this removes the red of the
flag on the shoulder.
5
When we zoom in on the image,
we can see some inaccuracies in
the cutout. Here, there’s a definite fringe
around the uniform, where we can see
part of the background starting to show
through.
M
AKING COMPLEX SELECTIONS
automatically has been the wish of
every Photoshop artist since photomontage
began. The Quick Selection tool is the
fulfillment of that wish.
This image of a United States general
would be almost impossible to cut out
using the Magic Wand tool. It shows a
complex uniform against an equally complex
background, and would require multiple
selections to make the Magic Wand even begin
to isolate it.
With the Quick Selection tool, however,
cutting the figure out is a straightforward and
easy process. It shows the power of the Quick
Selection tool at its best.
The Quick Selection tool
IMAGE: US DEPARTMENT OF DEFENSE
1
Natural selection
SHORTCUTS
MAC WIN BOTH
15
3
To see how the cutout looks, we can
use the Refine Edge dialog – choose
it from the button on the Quick Selection
tool’s Options Bar, or press COr
LAr. By default, this will show the
cutout against a plain white background.
We can now see the cutout much more clearly. The Auto-Enhance option for the
Quick Selection tool produces a smoother edge that has none of the roughness we
might normally associate with the Magic Wand or even the Lasso tool: this complex
selection has been made with almost no effort on our part.
4
We can choose a variety of
backgrounds against which to
view our cutout, all with keyboard
shortcuts. Choose them from the View
pop-up at the top of the Refine Edge
dialog, or press b for black, w for
white, v for a QuickMask-style overlay,
l to show the underlying layers, and
p to view the original. Switching
between black and white allows us to
see the accuracy of the cutout in much
greater detail.
7
The Adjust Edge sliders let us
smooth and contract or expand
the selection, to produce softer results
and a more convincing cutout. After
smoothing with Feather, you can tighten
up again with the Contrast slider.
9
When we’re done, we can choose
to output the results in a number
of ways. The best method is to save the
cutout as a new layer with a Layer Mask
attached, which lets us modify it further
if we need to.
8
By raising the Smooth amount,
we soften the shoulder; increasing
the Contrast stops it being too fuzzy.
Dragging the Shift Edge slider to the left
reduces the cutout area, so removing
the fringe.
HOT TIP
Owners of
Photoshop CS3
and CS4 can also
use the Quick
Selection tool
– but the Refine
Edge dialog
behaves slightly
differently.
v
s
Th
Adj t
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How to Cheat in Photoshop CC
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