Masking tech in Photo-Paint

Just like to share a tip when masking a photo in Photo-Paint.

This summer a huge flying insect came right at me and after a while it was either me or it. My newspaper didnt stop itself and the insect fell on the car. I instantly looked at it and saw how big it was and took a photo of it.

Now months later I am using the photo and making an image of it. As part of an illustration I am working on.

When I took the photo I placed the insect on a paper sheet. But dispite it being a neutral colour background, its troublesome to mask the wing from the background. The colour  of the wing edge and backgrund somehow have similar colour and the mask take too much of the wing. And when trying to compensate, other areas gets affected.

One way of solving this is to use the highly “professional” masking tool “The Magic Wand” and a new object (layer) as I like to do this very quickly.

1. Import or open the photo to a “New Image”.
2. Create a new Object in the Object Docker.
3. Use Magic Wand masking tool and mask the background around the insect
4. Select the new Object (layer) and go to the Fill tool (bucket) and choose white colour to fill the mask
5. Choose the Eraser tool.
6. Deselect the mask
7. Erase areas of the Object with white, and the wing now covered with white on the separate object, the wing will turn up nicely.
8. Fine tune the erased areas
9. Finished.

Now, either keep the mask on the new object (layer) or combine all objects (layers) into one.

Stefan Lindblad