Clean background? Magic Wand and Quick Selection. Complicated edge? Take it on with the Pen tool. Hair? Sit down and do it properly with channels. This post runs through all three in order of difficulty, then covers white fringes and decontaminating the edge. Find the tier that matches the image in front of you.
Beginner: clean background, so just use the Magic Wand / Quick Selection
If your background is a flat color — a white-background product shot, an ID photo — congratulations, you get the easy route.
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Open PS, import the image, and press W for the Magic Wand (or Quick Selection — they usually share one icon, right-click to switch).
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Click the empty area of the background and a ring of marching ants appears. That's the selection. If the background isn't fully selected, hold Shift and click the parts you missed to add them.
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Once it's selected, press Ctrl+Shift+I to invert, and now your subject is what's selected.
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Finally Ctrl+J copies the selected subject onto a new layer and the background is gone. After that, drag whatever background you want onto the bottom of the stack.
Note: Quick Selection is the smart one — it recognizes edges automatically, so it suits objects with a clear outline: a cup, a phone, a car. A slightly rough edge is fine; we deal with that later.
Advanced: complicated edges? Take them on with the Pen tool
If what you're cutting out is full of curves — a car, a bottle, a building — the Magic Wand won't do. The Pen tool (press P) is the real answer. Honestly, it feels a bit user-hostile at first, but once it clicks it's wonderful.
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Choose the Pen tool, then set the mode in the options bar to Path (not Shape). Did your teacher ever mention that? I certainly never noticed at the time.
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Click your way along the subject's edge, point by point. Where there's a curve, don't release the mouse — hold and drag to pull out two handles, which control the bend. Your first attempts will wander all over the place, which is normal. Practice sorts it out.
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Once you've gone all the way around, press Ctrl+Enter and the path becomes a selection. Then Ctrl+J as before to pull it out.
Honestly, this feature is buried, and most tutorials give it one sentence. But the Pen tool is the basic skill of cutout work: once you can control those anchor points, no image can stop you. I fell into the trap too at first, always feeling the line didn't hug the edge — it was simply too few anchor points, or handles that hadn't been dragged far enough.
Hell mode: hair strands! Settle it once and for all with channels
This is the star of today's post. How many of you clicked in just to learn hair? I understand.
On images like this, the Magic Wand and the Pen tool both fail. The only thing that works is the channel method. In plain terms, you use black-and-white contrast to separate the subject from the background. It sounds mystical, but it's really just a few steps:
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Open the image and open the Channels panel on the right (next to the Layers panel). You'll see red, green and blue. Click through each one and pick the one with the most obvious black-and-white contrast. Blue usually preserves hair strands best.
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Drag the channel you picked onto the Create New Channel icon at the bottom to duplicate it. Leave the original alone — we work on the copy.
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The channel is still in color at this point, so press Ctrl+L for Levels. Drag the black slider on the left to the right and the white slider on the right to the left. The goal is to make the subject black and white while the background goes pure white or pure black. Drag with confidence, until you can't see any gray band along the subject's edge.
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Then take the Brush tool (B): white brush to paint the subject white, black brush to paint the background black. This job needs care, and don't forget the background color caught between hair strands. I fell into this one too at first — painted until my eyes nearly fell out.
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When you're done, hold Ctrl and click this channel's thumbnail with the left mouse button to get a selection. Go back to the Layers panel and press Ctrl+J to pull it out. Done!
The channel method is more work, but the result really is something. Especially backlit hair, where every strand shows — it just looks solid.
Tip: if the brush feels hard to control inside the channel, try pressing Ctrl+Shift+I to invert, then use the white-point eyedropper in Levels and click the background, which turns it white quickly. That can save a lot of work.
Finishing: defringe and decontaminate the edge
Whichever method you used, the edge will be a bit white or gray, especially where the old background color was. One move fixes it:
- Find Layer > Matting > Defringe in the top menu bar and set the value to 1-2 pixels.
- Or more bluntly: hold Ctrl and click the layer thumbnail to load the selection, then Select > Modify > Contract by 1 pixel. Invert the selection (Ctrl+Shift+I) and press Delete to remove the edge. The white fringe is gone.
One last mention: sometimes you're away from a computer, with only a phone or a browser, and a lot of these features just aren't available. I recently came across an online PS tool at zaixianps.cc. It looks much like the desktop PS and also has the Pen tool and channels, and crucially there's nothing to download. On a business trip it's handy for emergencies with a phone. Take a look if you need it.
Two last words
Cutout work can't be rushed — be patient. When I was learning I genuinely wanted to smash my computer, and look at me now. You can rotate between these methods: some images only need the Magic Wand, others demand the Pen tool. Retouch a few more images and you'll get the feel. Try cutting out a photo of your favourite idol and dropping in a prairie background, then post it to WeChat Moments — you'll absolutely have people asking for the tutorial.
Alright, that's enough from me. If you have a better method, come and share it in the comments. We learn from each other!