Paint Shop

Thought I would make a quick how 2 guide showing how people use a photo editor to make a photo of something stand out. For my example I am using the shot of the lotus flower from my previous post. My photo editor of choice is Paint Shop. It has all of the power I need at a fraction of the cost of the 'other' program.

First step is to separate the background from the portion of the image I want to stand out. In this case the flower and its stem. The first thing I do is create a layer that is an exact copy of the current image. Think of a layer as separate sheets of clear paper stacked on one another. I do this by right clicking on the thumb nail image on the right and select duplicate. I now use the Background eraser tool to erase the area close to the flower.

Once I have gone all the way around the flower, I use the Magic wand selection tool with the setting of opacity to select only the flower. I then invert this selection (menu item under selection) and hit the delete key to remove the background. To help the flower stand out, I then use the 3d effect Drop Shadow and add a bit of a shadow to the flowers edges.

Now that I have the flower separated I can add the background back, for an enhanced look, or I can change just the background to a sepia tone, or a black and white tone as I have done before. You could even get creative and make the picture look painted and the flower unfinished. (Click on the one below it looks better full size)