Photoshop Turbo Cutouts Using Magnetic Lasso Tool

Posted 8th December 2011

This tutorial will explain how to make cutouts of images in Photoshop using the Magnetic Lasso Tool. In order to get the perfect cutout, Photoshop has a variety of tools and techniques which you can use in order to create the perfect cutout. In this example, I am going to be cutting out a watch from a background.

Step 1

Start by opening the image you want to cutout in Photoshop

Step 2

Now select the Magnetic Lasso Tool from the tool menu in Photoshop

Step 3

Using the lasso tool, draw a path around the image, similar to what I have done. It does not matter if the path lines are not perfect, as I will explain how we can clean these lines up.

Step 4

Now that you have your path, you now need to right-click within the path and select 'Make Work Path' from the menu list. Select a tolerance of 0.5 in the new window which appears, like so:

Step 5

Now that the path is editable, you can select the 'Direct Selection Tool' which you can use to edit the path. Simply click on the path using this tool and you can start dragging and moving the path points, in order to get the best cutout. You can add anchor points and delete points, in order to create the perfect line. Holding the 'Ctrl' button and clicking anchor points, gives you further options in order to edit the path.

Step 6

Now that the path has been cleaned up, you can now right click within the path and click 'Make Selection' which will allow you to select the path and the image inside and copy and paste the image in a new document, like so:

Step 7

Now that you have your cutout, it is best practice to save the work path in the document so that you do not lose it. To do this, simply double click the path under the paths tab in the layer properties panel, and save your image with a name. It's as simple as that.