Creating complex and high quality cut-outs.

Barry Beckham took to digital photography in the early days when it was still considered a black art by many. He saw the potential of digital photography and the improvements it would bring and began using Photoshop back in the days when it was version 3. Barry has gone on to produce tutorials for many of the UK photography magazines as well as authoring a book for Photoshop Elements.

However, his main passion is creating high quality images using Photoshop and he has become quite an expert in the practical use of this software. He is now producing videos exclusively for ePhotozine.tv using Photoshop and PicturesToExe audio visual software.

Barry is also well know in audio visual circles for his stunning AV shows, many of which can be downloaded from his web site. Barry has lectured all around the UK where his practical skills are constantly in demand.

For many of the subjects we want to cut out, we would naturally make a selection first. However, some subjects do not respond well to the automatic selection tools of Photoshop, such as the Magic Wand or even the new Quick Selection Tool.
Many people would give up at this point at the thought of making a manual selection or path around a tricky subject. What if we could cut out a complex shape without a selection tool in sight? What if that cut-out was of sufficient quality that it would stand printing to 24*18 or higher?
In this tutorial we demonstrate how easy it is to do just that with the normal tools of any version of Photoshop. Yes, it may take 20-30 minutes to cut-out the sort of complex shape we have chosen to demonstrate, but since when has anything worthwhile been created in 2 minutes.
It is a fairly simple process and the key to it is that anyone can do it. You don’t need a steady hand or any particular skill, just a little patience. It is also fool proof, where any errors can be put right easily at any stage of the manipulation. Take a look at the first few minutes of our video where we show you what we created and what we started with, plus a few examples of what we have done with this simple technique.
We think you might just hang around to the end.