If you are interested in learning more about digital art, one of the techniques that you'll have to understand well is how to remove backgrounds or other items from a picture. Once this is accomplished, you will be able to blend various images together or make clipping paths that aid in photo manipulation. Follow along with this tutorial to learn how to cut pictures out with Photoshop.

• Work at a size that is twice as big as what you need for your final image. Small mistakes in cutting won't be visible once you size the image back down.

• Contract your selection by 1 pixel to get rid of the white halo effect. Go to the main menu and choose Select -> Modify -> Contract

• If you plan to blend your cut out with another background, consider feathering your selection by 1 or 2 pixels. Pick Select -> Feather from the main menu.

• Opt for color range over the magic wand because it can gather all the patches of the unwanted color at one time.

• Unless there is a high contrast between your subject and background, use the pen tool instead of the lasso.

You'll only need a basic knowledge of the tool set for your image editor to complete this how to. Although Adobe Photoshop is the program used, any up-to-date image editor can perform the same tasks. In this tutorial, color range, the lasso, magic wand and pen tool will be covered.

There are two tools, the magic wand and color range, that you can use to remove relatively solid backgrounds. Although a it may appear to be one flat color, it rarely is especially in photographs.

How to Use the Magic Wand:

1. Type the shortcut W to activate the wand tool.
2. Click with it in the middle of the background color.
3. Set the tolerance over 32 to make the selection pick up more pixels or below 32 to pick up less.
4. Use Shift+Ctrl + I to invert the selection so that it is around what you want to keep.

How to Use Color Range:

1. Open the color range menu by going to the main menu and picking Select -> Color Range.
2. On the select drop down menu, choose Sampled Colors.
3. Adjust the fuzziness slider to get a larger or smaller selection as needed.
4. Make sure the eyedropper icon on the color range window is active then click on the background.
5. Type Shift+Ctrl + I to invert the selection.

To remove a complicated background, you'll need to use tools with a little more precision than the magic wand or color range. This leaves you with the pen tool and to a lesser extent the magnetic lasso tool.

How to Use the Magnetic Lasso Tool:

1. Click the shortcut L to activate the lasso. (You may need to click the icon to make sure the lasso with magnet is active.)
2. Drag it near the edge of your subject. It snaps along the demarcation line.
3. If you want to force a point creation, click with your mouse where you want it.
4. Once you are done, double click to close the selection.

How to Use the Pen Tool:

1. Type P to choose the pen tool.
2. If your path window is closed, go to Window -> Paths on your main menu.
3. Using the pen, place points around the edge of your object. Since these are Bezier points, you can convert them to make smooth curves where needed.
4. Close the path by joining it with the original point by clicking it.
5. Ctrl click the path in the path window to make an active selection.

Now that you have your selection using whatever method you chose, it's time to cut out the picture. Although you could just hit the delete button to remove unwanted material, it's a better idea to mask out the area instead. This way you can just alter the mask if you need to make a small tweak or put part of the background back into the image later. To make a cut out mask, just have your selection active then click the mask button at the bottom of the layer window. (The icon is a square with a circle in the middle.)