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Tutorial: Digital Cutting in Paint Shop Pro 8.1
by Valeri Brumfield
What
do you do when you have that perfect shot, but the setting
is all wrong?
Simple, just cut it out with your digital scissors and
put in your own back ground.
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How you ask? There is more then one method, however,
this tutorial will show you how to cut your subject
out with the lasso tool. Fire up PSP and get out
your lasso tool. Choose Smart edge…..
Carefully “cut” around your subject by clicking
at various points around your subject. It doesn’t
have to be perfect, we can clean it up a bit later.
For now just get the subject cut out of the unwanted
background.
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My
first step is to click “Shift + D” so you
get a new copy to work on. You wouldn’t
want to accidentally mess up your original! Next, crop
as close to the subject as possible just to make it
easier to see. When using the smart edge tool,
if your colors are extreme contrasting, like the dark
blue shirt against the white wall, then you can
use less clicks, that is what makes it so smart!
When your color changes are less extreme, click more
often and closer together, like where the shoes are
against the darker floor and the heavy shadows.
When you are done, just right click and the marquee
of marching ants will appear. I like to copy and
paste to a new image so that I can see what I am doing
a bit better to clean up the image.
Ok, next step, lets zoom in and get very close to see
the detail. Get out your eraser. Choose
the default brush, small enough to work on the small
details. When you right click on the eraser, it
will repaint what is missing. See where a chunk
of his hat was removed in the cutting process? Right
click on the eraser and paint it back! Try that with
your regular scissors!! Just keep erasing
and un-erasing as needed until your whole image is cleaned
up. Remember, the UNDO button is your BEST FRIEND!
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In
the Digital world, you really can clean em up and take
em wherever you want to go.
Stonehenge photo from Stock.xchng by lock-e
FDR Park photo from Stock.xchng by kamsalisbu
Have Fun!!!
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