Datasheet

6 chapter 1 ■ Tools for Building Your Masterpiece
Removing Objects from Their Background
Let’s get started and remove an object from its background. Open the image apple.jpg
from this book’s CD (see Figure 1.9).
Let’s pull the apple off the background and give it a new home. Duplicate the
Background layer. Create a new layer between the two apple layers and fill it with white.
Rename the Background Copy Extract
(see Figure 1.10).
Figure 1.9 The apple will serve as our
extraction model.
Select the Pen tool in the Toolbar. On the Options bar click the Paths icon; it is the sec-
ond icon from the left at the top of the screen (see Figure 1.11). Click the mouse anywhere
along the edge of the subject (in this case, the apple) to serve as a starting point. Move along
the edge of the object a short distance in either direction and click to add another point. If
the path between the two points rests on a curve on the object’s edge, hold down the mouse
when you create the second point and drag it further along the edge a short distance. This
will cause the straight path to slowly conform to the curve of the apple’s edge.
Figure 1.11 Creating a path can be
tricky but gets easier with practice.
Figure 1.10 Set up the Layers
panel for extracting.
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