There are three methods of deep-etching used in Photoshop, each with its own little tricks of the trade.
Method 1: Using the eraser tool to manually erase the sections of the photograph or image that you don't want. The main problem with this is that it's not particularly precise and you end up with jagged edges and an image that looks as if it's been touched up. As with the maple leaf above, it has really detailed edges that give it its yummy look - were I to use this method, I'd either be spending 6 hours zoomed in to the max with a 1 pixel eraser or I'd lose the detailed edging.
Method 2: Making use of the Colour Selection option of Photoshop to select and delete specific colours from the image, hopefully leaving the bits you want behind. The problem here is that your standard photograph has millions of different coloured pixels and if you don't know what you're doing, you'll end up deleting too much or too little, and you have to manually go and erase the ghost pixels anyway ala method 1. If you look at the background on the maple leaf, you'll see there are at least 30 shades of brown there.
My preferred method?
Method 3: Making use of the Pen Tool in Photoshop to deep-etch the part of the image that I want to use. The advantages of using this method:
- You don't delete anything on the original picture during the process, which means that you can tinker with it until you're 100% happy with the result.
- You have very fine control over the tool, so you can adjust and edit it to your heart's content The final result of your deep-etching looks professional.
- Once mastered, no one would be able to see that the image has been touched up. (A personal bugbear of mine ... image touch-ups looking contrived and badly executed.)
It takes a bit of practice to master, but once you have it ... the sky's the limit.
It took me just an hour to deep-etch the maple leaf in the above photograph out of the background. So, let's get stuck into using the pen tool in Photoshop. A couple of things to bear in mind:
- For your first deep-etching adventure, choose an image with a high contrast between the section you want and the bits you want to remove. This gives you a precise edge with which to play and makes it much, much easier to know where you are, even when zoomed in.
- The Pen Tool creates a separate layer in your Photoshop document called a shape layer. This is overlaid on your image which means you're not tinkering with the original.
- The Pen Tool creates a path - a dynamic vector outline that allows you to edit it even after you've completed it. This is what makes the Pen Tool so powerful in deep-etching.
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