Tim Grey’s Blog

I love applying targeted adjustments to my images via layer masks and adjustment layers, and quite often those targeted adjustments start with a selection. That’s why I often spend about a full day out of a typical five-day workshop teaching a variety of ways to create selections.

Of course, quite often photographers find selections to be challenging. It isn’t a lack of tools at their disposal, or even a lack of skill on their part. Rather, it is the presence of something in the object they’re trying to select: fuzzy stuff. Specifically, hair, feathers, or fur. These things can create quite a challenge.

I’ve often taught the use of the Extract filter to create a selection in these difficult situations. So I was more than a little dismayed the first time I went to create a selection using Extract in Photoshop CS4. Extract had been extracted!

Fortunately, extract still exists. It simply isn’t installed with Photoshop CS4 by default. It seems Adobe feels you can get better results more quickly by using other tools, such as the Quick Selection tool.

If you frequently need to create selections that would otherwise call for the Extract filter, you’re probably better off using a more advanced tool such as Mask Pro from onOne Software, which does a much better job than Extract.

But if you don’t need a tool like this too often, or you’d rather not spend extra money for a more powerful tool, you can still put Extract to use in Photoshop CS4. If you purchased the DVD, you’ll find the Extract filter in the Goodies folder on that disc. If you purchased the download version, you can get Extract from the Adobe website. Copy the filter file to Photoshop’s Plug-ins/Filters folder and restart Photoshop. You’ll then find Extract on the Filter menu, safe and sound.

This entry was posted on Sunday, December 28th, 2008 at 6:10 am and is filed under Software. You can subscribe via RSS 2.0 feed to this post's comments. You can comment below, or link to this permanent URL from your own site. Your comments will appear immediately, but I reserve the right to delete innapropriate comments.