Step 1: Open the image to change the background of a photo
The first step is to open the image that we are going to cut in order to change the background of the photo, for this in the file menu we will select the Open option or if you prefer press the combination of tasti Ctrl + O ; Immediately the window will appear where you can search and select the photo we are going to edit.
Once the image is open, we will see the Layers panel in the lower right part of the program, with its thumbnail and a lock tool icon on the right side, we will press the icon to open the New Layer window to convert the open photo into a floating layer by pressing the Ok button.
Step 2: Select the area and create the selection mask
The second step will be make a selection mask of the figure that we are going to crop in the image, but it is important to remember how to zoom in or out on the photo (Ctrl ++ and Ctrl- respectively); There are several ways to make a selection in Photoshop, and the most convenient to use in the CC version is called Quick Selection.
Quick Selection has a brush-tip cursor, which is another useful tool, and a circle. Once this tool is activated, we can make a selection from the background of the image by clicking with the mouse on the outline of the figure we want to cut; Photoshop will automatically make a selection of the background around our figure whose area will be displayed with a striped line.
While we are with this tool, the cursor changes shape and we see a semicircle when we make the selection, a symbol stands out in the center "+" which indicates that everything we click on will be added to the selection (activated with Shift), and if it has a "-" will have the opposite effect by subtracting the selection, (yes active with Alt).
However, the selection with this tool isn't perfect and can cover areas we don't want, since the program can confuse the pixels the internal and external area of said selection; for this Photoshop saves a history of each action performed and we can go back to the previous one by pressing Ctrl + Z.
If there are still areas that are difficult to select from the pixel blending, we can use the Lasso tool in the left menu of the screen and add the drawn area to the selection by pressing the Add icon in the upper left or with the Shift button. This tool allows you to make manual selections that do not take into account the similarity of the pixels in the photo.
Step 3: Change the background of a photo and edit the border
The third step is to press the top button up Select and apply mask and immediately you will see in the Layers Panel, the preview of the image and the mask created (in black and white); selecting it we will access a new view to finish adjusting the image outline with the Brush tool, to refine the edges.
This tool was designed to blur pixels around the selection boundary and avoid clipping. Then we press the Ok button in the Properties Panel to return to the general view of the photo; where we will press the Invert selection option in the Selection menu.
Step 4: Copy the selection mask and paste into the background photo
The fourth step is the copy the clipping mask and paste it in the background photo, for this we must have the background photo open; to copy press Ctrl + C and to paste Ctrl + V or we can drag the mask with the mouse towards its destination; finally, all that remains is to move and resize the cropped image within the background until the desired result is obtained.
This way we can easily change the background of a photo with Photoshop CC like a pro; If you enjoyed this article, please feel free to like us and share it with anyone you think might be interested in this topic; in this way motivate us to generate more quality content like this.
