Adobe Photoshop Sports Graphic Player Cutout

In this tutorial for Adobe Photoshop, you will learn how to cutout and edit your own simple sports player image so it can be used in design projects. The tutorial will be broken down into steps and will explain how to edit then cutout your player from the background from start to finish. A basic understanding of Adobe Photoshop is suggested as it will allow for a smoother, quicker and more accurate design process.

In my example a baseball player is used but following the same steps can be done with a range of sports and images whatever your interest may be.

Notes:

The > symbol will be used throughout the tutorial to indicate the movement from one instruction to the next.

Quotation marks “” will be used throughout the tutorial to indicate the exact words used in the Adobe Photoshop platform.

Image with red circles and squares will also be used throughout to help guide the process.

Supplies:

For this tutorial you will need:

1. A functioning computer (Mac or PC)
2. Access to an up-to-date version of Adobe Photoshop.

Open Adobe Photoshop > click ‘New File” in the top left corner.

Use the accompanying image to set up your canvas setting matching what I used > then click “Create”, which will then open your canvas.

(I recommend the 2000 px by 2500 px, and RGB color as shown for any design will be used digitally across social media.)

Navigate to the top left corner of your screen and click “file” > “import” > “image from device” > the select the image you want to use.

Or

Find the image you want to use on your device > drag and drop it onto the blank canvas in Photoshop.

Using your Move Tool select your image by clicking it > go to the “filter” tab along the top bar of your screen > click “camera raw filter”

Once in “camera raw filter” a lot of the choices you can make alter your image in different ways, a lot of which are personal design choices. The images in this step will outline and show my choices which I recommend following if you are newer to Photoshop.

Also, the degree to which you edit your image will also depend on the lighting and quality of the image you are using. Therefore, use the images below as a rough guide while using your own discretion and personal design choice.

Then click “okay” in the bottom left corner.

Using your Move Tool select your image by clicking on it > click the “Remove Background” tab that appears below your canvas.

Photoshop will automatically remove your background, but it is not always perfectly accurate. Therefore, you can then manually clean up the edges of your sports player cutout using the mask that was automatically created by photoshop when clicking "Remove Background" in the previous step.

The mask is the black and white silhouette next to your image in the layers section as shown in the image.

Click the black and white silhouette mask while holding “command” on mac or “control” on PC. This will select the outline of your player cutout.

Then click “select” on the top menu bar > click “modify > click “contract”

The dialogue box shown in the image will then pop up.

Type 1 in the “contract by” box and select “okay”. Doing this will contract the outline around the player cutout by 1 pixel all the way around.

Then go to “select” > then click “inverse”.

Using your Move Tool click on the black and white mask silhouette, so it is selected again.

Now select your paint brush tool from the icon bar on the right side.

With the paint brush tool and mask layer selected make sure you have a black paint color selected. (Within a mask layer black removes/hides the image and white adds any removed part of the image back.) I would also suggest to increase your brush size to 500 pixels or above and make sure the brush opacity is 100% in order to make this next step as easy as possible.

Once these items are taken care of (images included in this step will assist in helping you complete them if extra help is needed.) you can now remove the untidy edges left by photoshops automatic background removal by painting over the entire image.

If these steps are completed correctly (with the use of a mask and importantly the players marquee selection) only the 1 pixel around the edge of the player should be removed.

If there is still an untidy edge around the cutout of the player you can repeat this process until it has been removed.

Once you are happy with the cutout to deselect the marquee/selection tool go to "select" across the top bar > "deselect".

With the understanding of layer masks and that black paint removes and white adds should you need to add or remove any other parts of your player cutout this is simple process you can carry out with the paint brush tool.

Congratulations! You have now edited and cutout a player/character on photoshop ready for it be used in any design you wish!