4 Click the Smart Radius checkbox to select it, and adjust the radius slider to enhance the edge. Watch the preview of your cutout to see the effect. (Generally a value in the middle of the range, such as 9 px will do nicely.)

QuickTip: SmarT CuTouTSUse Photoshop CS6 to create amazing cutouts with just a few simple steps!

Removing the background from a photo of a person is the first step to many great effects, creating a dynamic look that is sure to add energy to layouts, and allow you to experiment with shape and color in your design. Often called a “cutout,” these background-free images can be created in a variety of ways. The process of cutting out complex shapes—such as hair or clothing—can be a chore, however. This QuickTip will show you how to leverage the powerful Edge Detection feature of Photoshop CS6 to make the process much less painful and provide a sharper result (the same basic process will also work in CS5 and CS5.1).

1 Open the photo you would like to cut out (if you have a choice, photos with smoother, less-busy back-grounds and background colors that contrast with the person’s hair and clothing work best).

2 Choose the Quick Selection tool ( ) and then click and drag right on top of the person or object that you would like to cut out from the background. This will begin to form an outline around that person, as Photoshop attempts to automatically detect the edges. Continue clicking and dragging to add to and expand the selection area until it is fairly close to outlining the person or object — hold down Option (on Mac) or Alt (on Windows) on the keyboard while clicking and dragging to remove part of the image from the selection. This process won’t do a great job with the rough edges of clothing and hair, but don’t worry, this is only step 2.

3 Once you have your subject roughly outlined using the Quick Selection tool, click the Refine Edge… button on the toolbar. This will summon the Refine Edge window.

Use the magnifying glass and hand tool at any time to adjust your view of the cutout preview. Use the View option to change how the cutout preview is displayed—On White or On Layers are generally the easiest to use.

5 Click the Refine Radius tool on the left side of the window.

6 Click and drag over the edge of your cutout where the hair or rough part is located — start on the background, a little outside of the part you want to keep, and ‘paint’ right over all of the hair, going into the part you want to keep. When you release the mouse or trackpad button, Photoshop will auto-matically refine the edge, leaving the hair finely cut out.

>>ConTinued

7 Continue to paint ‘through’ the hair or rough edge using the Refine Radius tool — you can even go over the same sections again and again until you are happy with the results. Make sure to start with the background color and drag inwards. If you start on the hair or the person, rather than the back-ground, the effect will not work as well. You can also click and hold down on the Refine Radius tool to show another option underneath: the Erase Refinements tool. Select this tool to remove the refinements from any area that you click and drag over.

Use a combination of the two tools until your edges look nearly perfect.

As you work, you may notice areas, especially in the face, where the background begins to show through. It’s easiest to concen-trate on removing all of the background, and just leave these extra ‘holes’ for now — we’ll clean them up at the end.

8 Once you are happy with the cutout, click the Decontaminate Colors checkbox to select it. This tells Photoshop to automatically remove some of the background color that may have been reflected by the hair and clothing remaining in your cutout. You can use the slider marked Amount just below the checkbox to adjust the intensity of the effect.

9 Select New Layer with Layer Mask from the Output To menu, and click the OK button. This will create a new layer with a linked mask, which looks like an extra layer on the same row in the Layers panel:

Layer Mask

Click the layer mask to select it. While the mask is selected, you can use the standard Paintbrush tool with white as the selected color to paint back in any details lost (holes) in the face or body. Switch the color to black to remove cutout details.

You can also use the Properties panel to refine the edge again (use the WiNDOW menu to open it, if it isn’t already open). Just make sure your mask is selected, and then click the Mask Edge… button in the Properties panel to bring up the window to refine the edge again (start again at step 4).

11 That’s it! Save your document as a PSD file, in case you want to edit it more later. It is now ready to be placed in InDesign.