Comments on: Quick Tip #14 Photoshop Extract Tool

By: Silvertoes

Silvertoes — Mon, 27 Jul 2009 21:11:03 +0000

You are wonderful. Thank you for sharing.

By: Lenae

Lenae — Tue, 24 Feb 2009 18:36:38 +0000

Fabulous! so easy I can’t wait to share.

By: Nick

Nick — Mon, 09 Feb 2009 22:01:30 +0000

Loving your tips….great stuff!! Did you know that with the extract tool when you are outlining your selection id you hold the Control button (PC) while outlining an area that has a pretty defined edge you can tighten the selection? Try it…it helps a lot. I always stick to the wide brush though when highlighting hair or grass, etc. though.

By: n00bz0rz

n00bz0rz — Fri, 06 Feb 2009 06:48:16 +0000

that’s neat for a quick fix… , the optimal way is to extract from images is to switch through the rgb channels find the highest contrasted channel duplicate it, adjust the levels for a pure black and white silohette, do minor adjustments filling in the black and white until desired silohette then drag the channel down to create outline from channel go back to rgb channel and copy out out your image, you can also go back to channels and click on create channel mask from outline, and you have a permanent outline for future work

By: Daryl Walker-Smith

Daryl Walker-Smith — Wed, 04 Feb 2009 16:06:49 +0000

Have just discovered that CS4 doesn’t have this little gem by default. You have to download it from Adobe or install it from your “goodies” folder.

Having said that, be warned, since doing so some of my scripts don’t work and the “Save for Web and Devices” is permantently greyed out (

By: Daryl Walker-Smith

Daryl Walker-Smith — Wed, 04 Feb 2009 13:19:38 +0000

Great tip – but I can’t see “Extract” in the filter dropdown in CS4 – or am I just being dumb? |

By: Gaia

Gaia — Wed, 04 Feb 2009 09:43:21 +0000

Thanks for the tip! I didn’t know about this…
I do use the magic wand for this sort of things, though. Especially if the background is white, the wand will select it very easily and then you can invert the selection to capture your object

By: Aaron Irizarry

Aaron Irizarry — Wed, 04 Feb 2009 03:14:08 +0000

Nice! This will save me a ton of time.. instead of creating clipping paths everytime I need to cut something out.

Keep em comin’

Aaron I

By: Renee

Renee — Tue, 03 Feb 2009 23:02:11 +0000

Oh shit! I had no idea you could do that!! Why oh why wasn’t I shown this years ago when I had to cut out product shots at my very first co-op?! *head desk* Ha ha.

Thanks for the sweet tip!

By: SethStevenson

SethStevenson — Tue, 03 Feb 2009 22:25:22 +0000

Great tip. I’ll have to try it out later. Photoshop has so many tools I don’t even know about yet. Now if I could just get it to quit crashing on my work PC. :\