Removing background from images

[Alex Ross]

Hi,

I am designing a catalog however the photos have a background, for
example the pictures are of shoes but i can see the table the shoe is
sitting on and the background behind the shoe, is there a way to cut
the shoes out in Photoshop so the background is removed?

Thanks

[TheBusiness]

Hi

There are a few ways you can do this. Which way is best comes down to personal choice and the contents of the photo.

My personal favourite is as follows:

Make a copy of the photo so you can always go back to the original
Load the copy into photoshop
create a new layer
with that layer selcted, press control and backspace to fill that layer with the current background colour
rename the background layer by double clicking on it and when the popup window opens (should say layer 0) just click ok
Drag the new layer under the photo in the layers palete
select the eraser tool and a suitable brush size
make the hardness of the brush about 75%
then just rub away what you don't want
do this in small sections so you can always go back a step (Ctrl Alt z) if you need to
once you are happy, flatten the image to save as a jpg

Some people will use the pen tool, some will use the magic wand, some will make a bitmap stencil as a guide. Assuming you want a netural background for the shoes, all white or all black for example, the above method will do great.