Precision cropping in Photoshop 7!

Ever want that character from an image, but not the background it's attached to? Or maybe you've already tried seperating the two with an eraser brush or magic wand tool. More than likely, you didn't get the results you had hoped for. This tutorial is meant to make the process of isolating part of an image much easier.

First, copy the image below:



To paste it in Photoshop 7, go to File> New. Bubble in 'Transparent' & select 'Ok'.

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Now go up to Edit> Paste.

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The image should now be ready. Head over to your Tools Palette (column of buttons on your left). In the first column, second down, there should be some sort of lasso tool. Click and hold to view the other types of lasso tools. Then from the options, select the Polygonal Lasso Tool.

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Now, make sure your tool settings look like so:

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Enlarge your image by using the scroll bar attached to the image sample on the right side of your screen & begin outlining the image by clicking around the image:

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Try not to create huge gaps in between anchor points (the places you click to lay out some more of the outline) or your image's outline won't be very smooth and will appear jagged. Once you're done outlining the entire image, click on the point you started outlining with to finish & close the outline. You should no longer have a line following your arrow & the outline should be moving.

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Go up to Edit> Copy. Then File> New & select 'Ok' (checking the transparent background option) again. The new image should look like so:

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^^ Congrats! You're done! Feel free to make a few new layers and play around with the bg to give your new crop job a bit of test run: