Using the Quick Mask tool - Photoshop 6.0

Here is simple way of using the quick mask tool, that may give you more pleasure than pain than any other method.

Masking basically means to remove one section of the image, and replace it with another colour, or another image altogether.

The technique is demonstrated simple by replacing the black background below with a white one. You can use the method for more cool replacements.

First open any image you wish to play with in Photoshop. This is a guitar

Now make the mask. Click on the button labeled "Edit in Quick Mask Mode" ( or press Q on your keyboard ), and zoom in to any area that you are going to mask out on your image. ( The area you are going to change ). In the case above, we are removing the black background so we will be masking out that section.

So, to sum it up, use the pencil tool:
and a hard round brush:
( any size you feel comfortable with, use smaller brushes for more detailed areas ), and start masking!

Don't go crazy when you see the colour red when you are drawing around in your image, the colour red indicates the area of the image you are masking out.

Keep colouring the entire image as detailed an as close to the image you want to save as possible. ( The better you apply the mask the better the final image will look ).

After you have completed the mask, return to standard mode by clicking on the button that says "Edit in Standard Mode", or by pressing "Q" on your keyboard again. Your image will now look something like this: The resulting image you have now is the area selected in which you have NOT masked out ( in this case the guitar ). You can now cut and paste the guitar onto any background you choose, or change the background in this image. You can also inverse the selection to play around that way. ( select- >inverse).

Sometimes when working in detail with masks, the border areas of the image you saved may be a bit jagged. In this the smudge or blur tool may help you out.