Extracting a Figure from Its Background in Photoshop: a Professional Method

by John Butterworth
When there is little contrast between a figure and its background 5. Click around the outline of the figure to be cut out. You
and you wish to separate it in order to be able to paste the figure can either just click or click-and-drag to use the Bezier
into a different location, it is usually unsatisfactory to try to use a tool. If you make a mistake, use Ctrl+Alt+Z to go back.
standard tool like the “Lasso,” or “Magic Wand.” The main You will need hundreds of points. Save your work fre-
drawback with the Polygonal quently. When you get near the edge of the screen, hold
Lasso tool is that there is no down the space bar to get the Move tool. Click and drag
way to save your work until to move your photo to a new position.
the selection boundary is
complete. If anything goes
wrong, you can waste an
hour’s work.
The “Extract” filter (not in-
cluded in CS4) is useful for
figures with complicated hair-
lines, but the results invaria-
bly need a lot of manual touch-up and the file size can be large.
Using “Paths” (a vector-based method) results in a file a quarter
of the size, is very precise and re-
quires no touch-ups. As an example, I
am going to use the dance figure
shown. Here is the method:
1. Open your photo and make a
duplicate layer
Showing the partially-completed path
2. Select the Pen tool
3. Select the “Paths” option. See 6. If you need to close your file and then resume, open the
figure 1. Figure 1 file, open the “Paths” palette (Window>Paths) click on
Work Path. This will bring up your path. Resume by
4. Zoom in on your photo to 300% clicking on the last anchor point with the Pen tool. Con-
 tinue clicking around the figure.
7. On completing your path (joining the last dot to the first)
the dots will disappear and you will be left with a con-
tinuous line.
8. Open the “Paths” palette
(Window>Paths)
9. Click on the “Load Path as a Se-
lection” button (third icon from
the left, at the bottom of the
Paths palette (figure 2)
10. Invert your selection
(Select>Inverse) so that the
background is selected. Press the
“Delete” key. No difference will be evident before the
next step.
11. Select the Background Layer by clicking on it in the
“Layers” palette, then delete it (Layer>Delete Layer).
Your cut-out figure will now be displayed with a trans-
parent background. To preserve transparency, save it as
a Photoshop file, or, if you prefer a losslessly-
compressed format suitable for export to another appli-
cation, save it as a PNG file.
12. If there are any enclosed areas, you will now have to
click around these, following the same method. Just
omit the “Invert Selection” once you have established
your selection boundary.
To see how these cut-out figures are used in a commercial appli-
Figure 2 cation, you are invited to visit the Internet site of Harbour
Dancentre (Bastion Street, Nanaimo) at: hbrdance.com.
These selections are time-consuming to make, but the results are
well-worth the effort. The human brain and eye can follow or es-
timate where very subtle boundaries lie, often using a priori
knowledge of the
shape of objects, in a
way that is unmatched
by any filter algorithm.
Here, the extracted fig-
ure is pasted back into
the original as a dem-
onstration. It just needs
shadows to be added
near the feet to com-
plete the illusion.
Magic!

The finished extracted figure