Graphic-licious

Grey's Tips: four; cutting techniques, ways, etc.

FOUR: CUTTING TECHNIQUES. 

It is true that cutting is a pain in the butt, and most of us know it. Whereas you use Topaz Remask, the eraser, layer masks or anything else, you still need the accuracy. But wait... how do you know that the way you do it it's the easier and fastest way for you? 

I'm going to name a few ways to cut out, say, a flower. (I'm gonna focus on the Magic Wand and on the Eraser).

Lasso Tool: on Photoshop, it has the lasso tool, polygonal lasso, and magnetic lasso. Normally, it's the polygonal and the lasso tool what appears on programs like Pixlr. 

Magic Wand: more like magic what? Yes, this can be used as well. The magic wand selects something based on colors. If you want to cut that lil' red flower, you basically just click on the red and it'll select everything that's red. Of course, it also depends on the tolerance you put. You can also select more than one color (in PS, at least). When you put the magic wand, see the four squares just below the bar that says Edit, Image, Layer, Text, etc? Those little four squares? Yes, the first one is to select once. The one next to it (to the right, of course), with squares merged is to add something to the selection. Next to that, is to take something out of the selection. The fourth one, I'm sorry for this, I actually don't remember what it does. But Google sure does wonders, doesn't it? 

Quick Selection: come on. The title is obvious, you select, perfect the border and cut. Fairly easy. The squares things work the same way as the magic wand. Also, quick tip, if you want to cut that flower, you can first select the main color with the magic wand and then with the quick selection, you can keep selecting (with the square thing!) or take out of that selection. Fair deal.

Pen Tool: I'm sad to say that the pen tool and I are not friends. Actually, we hate each other. For such reasons, my explanation of this might be choppy and just plain weird. You can cut with the pen tool. It's complicated, but you can. I invite you to ask someone to teach you, or look for youtube tutorials, so you can teach me. (As you can see, I'm desperate to learn).

Alpha Channel Masking: this. This thing, I really don't know how to explain it, but it sure does wonders. That's why on the external link, there's a majestic thread done by @Ashihara, in which he explains what it is and how it works. 

The Eraser (!): I'm also very enthusiastic, I mean, I literally cut everything with layer masks and erasers. It's easy, if you know how to work with it. I see many people cutting with the eraser, which is more like actually erasing all the bloody flower in attempts to fix a tiny particle. Yes, I'm sorry, but you can't go in life around saying you cut that with an eraser and not knowing how to really cut with an eraser! No!

You gonna cut a rose, right? (Not saying this is the way to do it, but this is how I do it (and I sound pretty conceited) and it works well, for me at least. Idk). So, first, you erase the surroundings with a hard eraser. A full opacity, hard eraser, to erase the definitive. Don't you dare go near the edges just yet. Then, you're going to put the brush smaller, perhaps if the edges are ragged or blurry, lower the opacity of the eraser. Perhaps, lower the hardness to 50% if necessary. Now you are going to zoom in, and erase the edges, carefully. Then you fix the edges and such with hard eraser when necessary, and with a soft (about 30% - 50% maybe of hardness) when necessary as well.  The whole life hack of photoshop is to be detailed. If you need to zoom in until you see pixel by pixel, then do it! Don't be a lazy *** (whoops) and go zoom in! 

Topaz ReMask: oh, wow. If you got PS, or GIMP (heard they work on there too), you can get remask. Remask isn't actually the miraculous program to have a perfect cutting. It takes practice, and patience and a lot of knack for fixing up the small details. Usually, when you download ReMask, it tells you what to do. Green to keep, blue to fix and red to delete. Fairly easy again. 

I'm sorry if this wasn't any help at all. If you want more detail about something here, feel free to PM me whenever you want. What are your favorite methods to cut? (Feeling all TV show thing, y'know).