Using lasso tool to cut out photos using photoshop CS3

[crazyasian2]

I've been doing a lot of cutting photos from one picture and pasting it into another picture by using the lasso tool in photoshop. however, this is very cumbersome and time consuming. if i make a mistake in the middle or toward the end i have to start all over again. i tried the magic lasso tool as well, but it's not that accurate either. is there another tool that i can use that will allow me to do this quicker and more accurately? are there better softwares out there that are more user friendly for doing this specific task?

[marxz]

My favourite tool for this sort of work is using the pen/paths tool... you set up a new path and once you've made the path you convert it to a selection and use that to copy and past.

Paths can take a bit of getting used to but the bezier curves function, once you've got used to them, are very powerful tool for selecting curved lines (and straight lines too).
here's a brief explination of bezier curves http://amanda.dd.com.au/cgi-bin/advice/view.cgi?next=705320 but note that you can grab the control points (the squares at the end of each whisker) and using the ctrl key move them individually to alter the shape of the curve.
a more in depth view of the pen/paths tool is here (be sure to click through the whole tutorial as the first 3 pages are just an introduction):
http://www.thegoldenmean.com/technique/pen1.html


Pen/path's are not so good for soft edges or lots of fiddly detail edges but for that I generally will use pen/paths to cut out and select a larger area around any fine details, then use magnetic/wand/procedural selection tools in the new document to remove unwanted areas.


there's also an extract pluggin but I've never had much call to use it