Photoshop Manual: Lasso Tool

The Lasso Tool is one of the most useful of tools when it comes to selecting part of an image and will always be used, even by the experts.

Open image number 03.jpg for the next of the free Photoshop tutorials.
Bring up the Layers palette with F7.
Select the Lasso Tool in the toolbox. In the Feather box in the top options bar, set a value of 1. We are going to select the hand and the sleeve and prepare the cut-out for a different background.
To enlarge the image to a convenient size of 100%, double-click on the Zoom Tool in the toolbox.
Put the cursor, which is now shaped like a little lasso, on the edge of the hand and carefully drag it around the hand and sleeve. It needs to be done in one go, because if the mouse is released, the starting point and the end of the Lasso join up.
As you are going round with the Lasso, if all the hand subject is not showing on the screen, keep the mouse pressed down and hold down the space bar. The cursor changes temporarily to the hand symbol and enables you to move the image around the screen with the cursor. When the space bar is released, the cursor changes back to the Lasso and you can continue.
A little practice necessary here but it does work.

The moving dotted line is referred to as 'marching ants'.
In the Layers palette, the image is locked as the Background.
As such there is a restriction on how it can be manipulated.
Double-click on the Background. In the dialogue box which appears, the layer will now be called Layer O.
Click OK. It is now a normal layer and allows more scope.
At present, the hand is selected. We want the area outside the hand to be selected so that it can be deleted. Go to Select > Inverse.
Press the Backspace/Delete key to delete the area inside the 'marching ants'.
Go to Select > Deselect. The hand is now ready to be placed on a new background as the next part of this Photo Shop tutorial.
Open image number 04.jpg, the grass background.
Go to Filter > Blur > Motion Blur.
Enter an angle of 25 and a distance of 50 pixels.Click OK.

Choose the Move Tool (V) from the toolbox.
Hold the cursor on the hand/stopwatch image and drag it across on to the image of the grass background. Position it so that the sleeve is neatly against the bottom left corner of the background image.

Photoshop Manual