How do you get the lasso to cling around the shape of the layer, so you can use that to remove a section once the image is flattened?

you should be clearer, i don't understand what you need to do.

I THINK i know what he means.

If you want the lasso tool to "snap" to the photo, you should try to use the magnetic lasso tool.

If the image is on a transparent background just ctrl-click on the layer (command-click on a mac)

If you are trying to cut out an image here is one of the best ways to do it:

Zoom WAY in on the image so you can just about see the difference between the image you want to cut out and the background.

take the pen tool and click around the image (click-drag to create rounded edges), follow the image all the way around (holding the spacebar and dragging when you need to see more of the image), continue until you come all the way back around to the beginning point and close the path (click on the original point that you made). To radically change direction hold the ALT key and click on a point. This will allow you to change directions after a curved point without causing a weird curve to be added.

When this is done, go to the layer pallet and click "select path", then go to the layer with the image and choose "add layer mask" or cut and paste or drag, depending on what you want to do with the image.

This will give you the clearest "cut out".

Hope that helps.
Let me know if you have any questions
D

I have one layer over the baackground. I need to create a lasso outline of it that i can use to cut out part of the picture.

err...If you have something selected with the lasso, that area stays selected even after you flatten the whole image, no?

thx- much help & aqua teen is the best show ever

no prob... good luck!

"I hope he can see this, because I'm doing it as hard as I can."

shoot not exactly what i was tryin to do. Ill go into more explicit detail this time. I have a stencil of a logo and a picture of lava as seperate layers. I want to cut out the see-through logo with the lava inside of it. Do i have to flatten everyhing and then manually cut it out?

Maybe this is what you want?

goto the lava layer, select all, copy (you an delete or hide the lava layer now)


then , if the inside of the logo is one color or clear, just use the magic wand to select of the inside part. Make sure everything is selected up to the edge (adjust the magic wand tolerance if you have to)

then edit, "paste inside" (or paste into, I forget)

the lava will be pasted inside your logo and you can move it around,resize or whatever.

you'll get an effect like this (ignore the flashing)

Thx!!! I would've never figured that out. Im gonna go vote now

sorry, that was the only example I could find atm. Good luck

a more practical way is to use masking, ctrl+clic on your logo layer (i hope it's already cut out),, now, click on your lava layer, on the bottom of the layer palette there's a symbol of a rectangle with a circle in it. Click it. voilà.

I would agree with Sup's suggestion...

Then again, I love masks. Much easier to edit.

(reminds me: if you mask it out, to move the image in the back without affecting the whole thing, click on the chain (link) between the image and the mask in the layers palette and click on the image (left on that layer) and move it around. Relink the mask when done.

THX for the help. The end result was exactly as I desired.