Cut out a person from a photo using Photoshop

I'm tired of using the Magic Wand when extracting people out of various backgrounds so I searched the web and came up with this.  I am going to try it out as soon as I finish posting this.  I have Photoshop CS3.



My verdict: loads better than using Magic Wand! While the initial highlight part will most likely miss out some parts, you can recover these using the Edge Touchup and Cleanup tool while previewing the crop.

How to create an image with transparent background in Photoshop

I was quite happy with the result when I changed my food blog's layout.  However, from a bright and cheery orange and red theme, it is now cool blue and black.  While I can easily change the background to something else, I find the new colour scheme easy on the eyes.  But I'd still like it to have a welcoming feel to it and so I decided to add a couple of smiling faces to it.  But how do I integrate these seamlessly and not interrupt the flow of the background?  The answer: make the background transparent.

So I started by cutting out the persons from the photos using the Magnetic Lasso and the Polygonal Lasso tools.  I copied and pasted these onto a new layer, ready for transfer.

And then I created the canvass by clicking File > New and indicating my desired dimensions.  It is important to make "background contents" transparent.  The resolution is 72dpi.