anyone know how to remove a pictures background on photoshop?

ill try it out tomorrow! thanks hopefully ill get my first fark up soon

I'm sort of new to photoshop but from what I understand you can use either the background eraser tool to remove the background or you can use the magnetic lasso tool or quick select tool to cutout a portion of the picture you want and move it to another. To edit the background layer it needs to be unlocked.

quote:

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robyman
any other advice is also greatly appreciated

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I use Photoshop Elements, but I think most of the
P/E programs have about the same basic tools.

I simply use the free selection tool and zoom
in (if necessary) to outline whatever it is that
I want to select. It takes a little longer that
way, but you get a good outline with very little
"clutter" and you can always clean that up with
an eraser afterwards. .... Once the area I want
to separate is selected, I just go to the EDIT
menu, and click Copy, and then go back to EDIT
and click Paste... It automatically creates
another layer with just the selected area. If you
want to save and reuse this selection, just make
sure you save the image as a PSD file. That way
when you open it again, it will open in layers
and not a flattened image again.

Once I leaned how to do that, I bought a large
flash drive and save all my photoshopped stuff
on that. I have one file with just PSDs and
another with Finished Works.

Just for an example.....Like the Richard Sherman
image. If it's something I'm going to use a few
times. I'll start by selecting, Copying and Pasting
the entire body (away from the background) on
one layer....then of the body, I'll do a selection
with just the head and neck / hair and copy and
paste that. And I might just do another layer
with just the face area (minus the hair). That
way I have a PSD file with about 4 different
layers. I just select and copy the layer that
suits the idea I have in mind, and paste that to
the image I'm working on.

Hope that's clear, and hope it helps.

If you open your original image in photoshop, it opens as a single layer, which should say something like "background". Duplicate that layer. Turn off the original "background" layer. Now sleect the "new" duplicated layer, and erase everything that you don't want. it should show a checkered pattern in the background (which means that there is transparency).