Tutorial: Basic Extractions

HI Everyone! It's Wednesday and I'm (Jenn/jk703/The Typative Scrapper) back to share a tutorial for you! Today I will touch on Extractions, using the Magnetic Lasso Tool.

Extractions are a time consuming task, and it takes a lot of practice! I, by no means am an expert at this, but I have the basics down! There are basic things that you can learn how to extract, and after you learn them, you could extract anything! There are multiple ways to extract images: Extraction Filters and Presets, Magic Wand, Polygonal Lasso Tool, Pen Tool and the Erase Tool. My example will show how to extract using the Magnetic Lasso Tool. It is easy to extract an object but very difficult to extract hair from a windy day picture. I'm going to start with the basic extraction of a person. Meet my son, Shayne. :)

OK… first things first. Open your photo, Crop, and complete any photo treatments and photo corrections. Save this as a new file, so the original will be available later, if needed.

Double click on your photo layer in the Layers Palette and the little Lock will disappear on your background, changing the picture to a layer.

Next, Choose the Lasso Tool from the toolbar, and choose the sub menu tool: Magnetic Lasso Tool. This tool allows you to slowly go over the edges of the image you want to extract, adding anchor points throughout the edges. My example uses a feather of 3 pixels, and a width of 7 pixels between automatic anchor points.

With your photo selected in the Layers Palette, slowly move the Magnetic Lasso tool around the edge. You will see anchor points popping up as you move along. If you accidentally went the wrong direction, you can slowly move backward to remove the last anchor point, or you can press delete. Unfortunately, I'm unable to get a screen shot of the anchor points - they disappear when I try!

Once you have connected your anchor points, you will have the marching ants around your image, the portion that you want to extract.

Next, you can refine the edges by clicking on the Refine Edge in the Magnetic Lasso menu bar. The items I use the most are the Feather and Shift Edge. The feather gives the edges a softer look, and the Shift Edge helps remove unwanted background colors from the selections edges.

Before Feather and Shift Edge:

After Feather and Shift Edge:

After you've refined the edges, you will choose Select > Edit in Quick Mask Mode. You image will have the background in bright red, and the image will remain in color. The red will be the section that is to be removed. At this point, you will either add or subtract to your selection by using the Selection Buttons.

Selection Buttons:


Choose Select > Inverse. Your marching ants will have moved from around your selection to marching around the background. Press Delete. You image is extracted, and the background has been replaced with the invisible background. Right click on the image in the layers bar, and duplicate it to your layout or project.

Hope you get to trying this tutorial out soon! See… extractions aren't soooooo hard, right?! I hope this tutorial is clear, and if you have any questions, please let me know by leaving a comment or PM-ing me over at ScrapMatters. Enjoy your week and Happy Humpday!
Jenn (jk703/The Typative Scrapper)