In this post we’re going to start with a Photoshop basic: how to remove the background behind the subject of your photo using the selection brush and the quick mask feature. You know,

*Ahem*

This is technique useful for a lot of reasons. Maybe the background is ugly and you want to replace it. Maybe you’re making a fun composite. Maybe you want to swap your head onto Will Graham’s in that ladder scene in S1 Hannibal. Hey, I don’t judge…

I’m going to show you two ways to get rid of unwanted backgrounds, or, to look at it another way, extract a subject from a background to place in another image. This is a beginner level tutorial, and hopefully in-depth enough to not just follow along, but actually help you understand the tools.

Ok, let’s do this.We’re going to start with this image that I got at the awesome free stock photo website,