Computersight -

Welcome to my first ever tutorial/guide for Photoshop Elements 7!! I took many screenshots and hopefully covered it in enough detail and clearly enough for people to understand. I also have a video of me doing all this posted at the bottom as a link. ~Enjoy~
(If you have any questions feel free to ask me in a comment on the video/personal message on youtube – username: oODanielSanOo for the video)

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First open up Photoshop Elements 7.

Now go to: File>Open (Or press CTRL+O) and browse for the screenshot you want to open.

Next go to: File>New>Blank File… (Or press CTRL+N) to open a blank file.

This window will pop up, and input the size you want your siggy or whatever you are making to be, then press OK.

You should now see two open windows (If not be sure to check that the windows are not maximized in the photoshop interface).

We’re gonna start with the screenshot window. Now select the Quick Selection Tool as shown.

Now we need to zoom in on the screenshot. Hold ALT on the keyboard and scroll up on the mouse wheel to zoom in.

If the selection tool is too big or too small, make it the right size using the “[" key on the keyboard for smaller and the "]” key on the keyboard to make it bigger.

Now simply click and drag as if using it as a brush to select the character.

Continue to do this selecting everything you want on the character. You will end up with a rough selection as shown below.

Okay, so now we need to make it more precise. Zoom in on areas you think need some selection changes.

Now, hold the ALT key and a “-” will show in the middle of the selection tool. This means when you click and drag, whatever you move over will be deselected.

Now just use it as before, but this time holding down the ALT key and getting rid of areas you don’t want with your character.

Do this until you are satisfied and you should end up with a more precise selection, only selecting the character.

Repeat this process with other areas that need more precise selections.


Now zoom out by holding the ALT key and scrolling back on the mouse wheel. Hey! That selection looks pretty good! Lets use it now. (If you aren’t satisfied, just keep repeating the deselection and selection process with all areas of your character until you have it as precise as you want it)

Now select the Move Tool as shown below.

Since we can’t see the other window, we need to move the current window we’ve been working on to the side a little.

Now, just click the selection and drag it onto the new window surface and release. It will automatically copy and paste what you have selected into the new window.

Uh-oh! Still have a little of the background left on your character? No worries! Just zoom in on the area using ALT and the mouse wheel and we’ll get rid of this problem.

Select the Eraser tool as shown below.

A giant circle will be your mouse now. This is the eraser tool.

Adjust the size using “[" for smaller and "]” for bigger size until you get the size you desire.

Now just erase the unwanted background by clicking/holding the left mouse button and dragging the mouse around to erase.

Continue to do this until you have it looking how you like it.

Now zoom out again. Looking pretty good eh? Now we need to make the character fit in the picture! Luckily this can be done very easily.

Select the Move Tool and click on the character. A Bounding Box will pop up around the edges of your character. Using the little boxes on the edges of this bounding box, resize the character as you like.

After you have your character how you like it, click the green check mark labeled “Commit current operation”.

There! Your done! That wasn’t so hard was it? Now you have a nice cutout of your character you can use in a siggy, banner, or whatever you please to use it for.

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I hope this tutorial helped you if you are using photoshop and needed to know how to cut things out, or even if you just wanted to compare Photoshop’s selection tools to GIMP’s. Either way, thank you very much for taking the time to look over my guide ^^

If you still aren’t clear on how to do this, I made a video of me doing everything.
Video: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=74aDD9g0Z6E