How to use the pen tool in photoshop to crop a photo or remove a background.

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Table of Contents:
1. Introductions
2. Why I am making this guide and what the contents will be about?
3. The Guide
4. The Video Guide.
5. End.


Introduction:

Hello guys! This is my fifth guide, which will tell you how to use the pen tool in photoshop to crop a photo or remove a background.

Why I am making this guide and what the contents will be about?

The reason I am making this guide is because a lot of people do not know how to crop a picture or remove a background. So, I thought I would make this guide to educate themselves on how to do this. This is only for beginners though, this guide is made for simple pictures, not complicated ones. Examples of simple pictures and complicated pictures will be below. Most people need to crop simple pictures instead of complicated one. The contents will tell you how to crop a photo or remove a background. Well, I guess you figured that out, I'll just get to it then.

Complicated pictures:

Code:

http://www.desktopexchange.com/gallery/albums/Final-Fantasy-VII-Advent-Children-wallpaper/Final_Fantasy_VII_Advent_Children.jpg

The picture above is an example of a complicated picture. Rendering the red-haired person is pretty hard. The hair would be hard to render. If you really want to do it. There are hair rendering tutorials online, like this one.

Simple pictures:

Code:

http://anime-wallpapers.com/images/800x600/pikachu-ohh.jpg

The picture above is an example of a simple picture. Rendering this Pikachu is pretty easy. This is what I will be rendering in the tutorial.

The Guide:

Here comes the guide portion of this thread. First thing to do is to open up your photoshop.

After that, copy the image you will be using. Don't worry, if it's too large you can zoom out. If it's too hard to render the image without zooming in, feel free to use an image re-sizer.

Now click on new and photoshop will automatically set the options to fit the size of your copied image.



Now, press "Control + V" to paste your picture on the canvas.



Remember, this is only the middle of the canvas, there are more options around it.

After you are done with that, click on your pen tool. Which is on your toolbar to your left.



Now, after you selected your pen tool. You can zoom in by using the zoom button. Which is shown by a magnifying glass.

After that, carefully 'outline' the image you are going to render. Outline the entire image you are going to render. Be sure to end where you started. There is a little example below. It does not show the full picture, but it should be simple enough to show you the basics.



After you are done 'outlining' the image, click on the tab on right that says 'path'.



After you are done with that, right click on work path and press make selection. When it pops up, just press 'ok'.

You know you have done this part right when the outline starts 'moving'. Now the last part is to press "Control + C" and then press 'new'. After that, press "Control + V" and you have successfully rendered your picture and removed your background. Congratulations.

Video Guide:


End:

This is the end of the guide. I realize this is an extremely short guide, nonetheless, I hope you have learned something new. If you have any questions or concerns, please post it in this thread or PM me. =]