Photoshop Friday::Quick Selection Tool and Magnetic Lasso Are Our Friends.

Posted by Tiff in Photography | 3 comments

Q: Why are you so obsessed with photoshop lately?
A: How else am I going to attach legs on to a heart pillow and make it dance?!

Because I have my camera around my neck pretty much always, the kids have been involved in the photographic journey that I’m on. And right now, that includes the post processing in photoshop. This has led to an unexpected collaboration between all of us. For example, while in IKEA to get even more organizational gear, Sassy found a heart pillow with arms.

“Hey Mama! Can you cut my legs off and attach them to this pillow and then make it dance in a picture?” she asked, startling the woman beside her who apparently took it literally.

So we got the pillow and today made her vision a reality.

First, we put Pink’s “Raise Your Glass” on so we’d have some dancing music. Then, Naturalist got out my box of socks and we picked our favorites to put on. Then I set up the camera and we danced with the pillow, one at a time.

First I took a blank picture, which I’ll build my final picture on. If you want to try a trick shot, this initial ‘blank’ shot is the most important thing to get:

Next, I took a bunch of pictures of us dancing and moving and then picked out the best:

All that dancing really tires a gal out!

So, I let everyone take 5 while I imported everything in to photoshop to work some magic with the quick selection tool and magnetic lasso. The shot I want to get (dancing hearts with legs attached) simply involves cutting out the heart with our legs and leaving everything else behind. So I used the quick selection tool to trace all the things I wanted and dragged them on to the blank canvas picture. The quick selection tool looks like a little wand that you drag around parts of your photo. And actually, I created a duplicate layer of the blank canvas picture, so I layered it on that. That way, if I make a mistake (very likely!) I’m not affecting the original picture.

You can see where the harsh edges are, and where I need to take away more from the cut out pictures so it blends better with the background. This is where the magnetic lasso comes in to save the day! I can use the lasso to highlight and select an area that I want gone, and then use the eraser tool to erase it away. The great thing about this is the eraser will not erase anything outside of the blinking line the magnetic lasso creates…keeping the edges clean and intact while I erase everything around it. This cleans up the image considerably!

Next is my favorite part…adjusting the color/tones/brightness/contrast, and then adding a little texture on top! This picture was really dark, so I brightened it up, put in some more contrast, and adjusted the color curves a bit.

I showed the final picture to my dad, who paused for a minute and then said, “Well, it’s disturbing.” He hesitated a little more before adding, “but it’s art!”

Sassy approved of it, she said it’s just like what she was thinking in her head. I don’t know what is awesomer, the quick selection tool/magnetic lasso, or the fact that Sassy has dancing pillows with human legs attached running around in her head.

Here are some tutorials I used to help me learn more about the tools I used:

Quick Selection Tool:

Magnetic Lasso Tool:

Share Tweet