creating smooth cutouts

[FatCharlie]

I constantly see in people's sigs, smooth cutouts of their characters. I have photoshop CS1 and I'd say my level of experience is in between beginner and intermediate. Is there an easy way to make a cutout? Or is it a time consuming process. What tool do you use?

[Davitron3000]

I am not very good in Photoshop, but I just zoom in and cut out objects point by point. Seems really time consuming, but after a while of doing it that way, I can go fairly fast now. (if you have to cutout hard things like hair, it can get rough) I think the newer versions of Photoshop have a masking tool. I wish I knew how to use those.

After I cut out an object, if I feel that it isn't smooth enough, I will duplicate my cut out layer, and put a very light blur on the cut out that is behind. This will give you a slightly blurred outline. For sigs and stuff you are working with 72 dpi so it really doesn't take too much to make it look smooth I think.

[neighbortaru]

use the model (or altana) viewer with your character (and pose) on a green screen. in PS, select the green, inverse selection (might have to fiddle with the selection to get all the green from the edges) and cut. paste into a new image/background. voila! shrink the image down some more if you want to get some sharper edges.

[FatCharlie]

Thanks Davitron and Neighbor! One more question, what model viewer are you talking about?

[FatCharlie]

NVM, I did a search and found it. Thanks again.

[fencingkitty]

I don't know how complicated you want to get with it, but there's a tool in PS called the Pen tool that you can trace the outside of an image/shape with it, save the path it makes, and select that to get just that part of the image. This does away with nasty pixel jangley bits at the edge of whatever you're cutting or deleting.

(I have to use the bloody thing all the time at work so I'm used to it, but it takes some practice)

I Googled "Photoshop Pen Tool" and found this that looks like a decent tutorial on how to use the pen tool if you're interested.
http://www.melissaclifton.com/tutorial-pentool.html

[FatCharlie]

Wow thanks fencingkitty! That tutorial is awesome. I never thought of using the pen tool.