Remove Background of Photo

[ColorExperts]

When its come to making selection in Photoshop, most people stuck relying on the Lasso Tool but the most powerful tool in Photoshop to remove background of photo is Pen Tool. Every popular photo editing, graphics and page layout program uses the Pen Tool. The Pen Tool referred to as the Paths Tool, and that’s really the most appropriate name for it.

 

[grandpa_chris]

I don't think so. In fact I think the pen tool is the least usable tool in Photoshop for removing/replacing a background. Photographic data rarely conforms the the kind of line uniformity of the pen tool. For example, I'd love to watch you use the pen tool to remove the background in this photo:



There are dozens of ways to make a selection in Photoshop and the best way to do that for any given photo is the way that best suits that photo.

 

[Buckster]

I don't think so. In fact I think the pen tool is the least usable tool in Photoshop for removing/replacing a background. Photographic data rarely conforms the the kind of line uniformity of the pen tool. For example, I'd love to watch you use the pen tool to remove the background in this photo:

View attachment 48054

There are dozens of ways to make a selection in Photoshop and the best way to do that for any given photo is the way that best suits that photo.

^This.

 

[MrPorter]

Paths are the best and quickest way to mask fairly regular shapes such as an apple or products and packages and they allow you to export the clipping path to design based applications more readily. Obviously, for most photography you would mask with the quick mask and then refine it, or use the channels. The photo sample above is an obvious example where there is a substantial difference between the background and foreground and masking takes only a minute. With the pen tool it would take a month, and look like you'd done it with a pair of scissors.

 

[Buckster]

There are many methods of selection used for successfully making a mask, and no one of them is "best" or "quickest"; It always depends on the image and what the person doing it wants to accomplish.

I daresay that few around here require a clipping path to output to a design application. So while the pen tool can be useful and even quick for objects with smooth shapes when they are up against backgrounds that compete color-wise with them, making it difficult to auto-select them with the quick selection tool or color range, it's not nearly as quick or easy as those tools if they have a bit of color or contrast difference to work with.

Use of the pen tool as the THE go-to tool for selecting objects for masking is from a time before those newer tools (and others, including 3rd party plugins made specifically to do the task) made it so much faster and easier to deal with than the pen tool on most images.