Cutting With Layer Masks

The image is rather large, just so you know.

This tutorial was written because of =Serephinex--I'd mentioned with my picture Lady of the Lake that I'd thought of doing tutorials, and she'd asked for them. She's probably got her own way of cutting, but I find this one works really well for me!

I can usually get a smaller image cut out in about ten minutes with this method, longer if I decide to erase the entire background versus using the paint bucket (sometimes I do that). This method will work with mouse or tablet, but it's easier with a tablet.

Written using Photoshop CS2 (Mac), but will probably hold true for any version of Photoshop that uses layer masks.

Any questions, comments, anything, lemme know! I know I'm wordy, hopefully it's easy to understand. (There's some spazzy capitalization and spacing in the tutorial--I'll fix that when I can.)

Thanks muchly to ~strangeh-stock for the pic of Willie, I just love cutting him out. Might make a second tutorial (blending backgrounds with layer masks) and put him somewhere other than blue.