🚀 go-pugleaf

In article <449860A1.7090506@columbus.rr.com>,
 Dave Scott <dscott91@columbus.rr.com> wrote:

> Thanks to Mike's suggestion of feathered selection with mask added, I 
> was able to move from the previous rectangular selections Jay and I had 
> to the attached. Much smaller size, nice edging, transparent background. 
>   Still not sure about using the brush tool. This was done with the 
> lasso for selection set to 10 px feathering and masking out the rest of 
> the image. Then I copied each image into its own layer in the montage 
> file and moved them around until it looked pretty good. Then flattened 
> everything and exported this jpeg.

For future reference, here are some things that will make your life 
easier:

You say you copied each image into its own layer. Do you mean you used 
the Copy and Paste commands? If so, you should get out of that habit. To 
move images from one Photoshop document to another, just click and drag 
with the Move tool into the window for the document where you want to 
move it to. Copy/Paste wastes memory and takes longer.

Instead of making a feathered selection, then copy/pasting or moving 
into the new document, first move the picture into the new document. 
Then make your selection. Then use the Select->Save Selection command 
and choose 'Layer Mask.' When you do this, you can go mack and change 
your mind later. You can also change the mask by painting in it with the 
paintbrush tool.

You do not need to flatten everything before you export to JPEG. Just 
use File->Save As. It will automatically flatten.

Do not use JPEG unless you have a very good, clear, and convincing 
reason why it HAS to be JPEG and no other format will do. JPEG will 
degrade the quality of your picture. It was invented for situations 
where image size on disk is critical and image quality is not important. 
If you do not know what format you should use, but you do not have a 
good reason why it has to be JPEG, use PSD or TIFF.

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