Corel PHOTO-PAINT's Cutout Lab

© 2007 by Nathan Segal. All Rights Reserved.

Get The Corel Photo-Paint X3 Insider! Extensive practical resource covers PHOTO-PAINT along with the software and devices that work with it.

Masking is one of the most common, yet important tasks to do when compositing an image. And yet it can be difficult at times, knowing what to do, how to do and to get a good result. Nathan's free tutorials gave you a quick example of masking with a relatively similar background. But what if the background is more complex? What if the image is in real life and not the controlled environment of the studio? Then the task can become much more challenging, even daunting.

This tutorial covers one of those tasks, a photograph of a spiny cactus against a background. Great care needs to be taken to remove the background without damaging the look of the cactus's spines. Here, we make use of the Cutout Lab, which allows exceptionally fine detail and intricacy in masking. You will be guided through how the Cutout Lab works, what tools to use and why. You will see previews that give you more information about how your mask is progressing and how to refine it for an excellent result.

When you've completed the mask, the image may be perfect as it is, but sometimes a masked image might have too sharp an edge and in a composition, it can look cut out and pasted into the scene. That's where the second tutorial comes in, on the subject of Feathering. Feathering softens the edge of the image, makes it more transparent and allows the image to blend into the scene. It can be applied after any masking process and in many cases it will make all the difference in the world.

These two tutorials, in combination with the free tutorial on masking using the Magic Wand, will cover a wide variety of masking challenges, but there are more, which will be covered in tutorials to come. Right now, though, you will be able to get great results with these tools.

Get two movies that explain Corel PHOTO-PAINT's Cutout Lab. In total there are over 14 minutes of video training. Also supplied are the files needed to follow along. All this for only $10! Just click the button below to get your copy today!

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Bitmap File Formats for Sharing · Corel PHOTO-PAINT's Cutout Lab · Fast Exposure Correction with Corel PHOTO-PAINT X3 · Quick Masking with Corel PHOTO-PAINT X3 · Image Slicing with Corel PHOTO-PAINT

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