Photo/graphic help!

Totally fair question, sir.

I'm not a big fan of cutouts myself, though I do a fair number of them in non-newspaper applications.

 

Just a thought. Go into photoshop and use the magic wand tool on the dark background. You'll likely pick up 70 percent of that background. Cut and see what you have to work with from there. You can probably do it under 30 minutes.

 

But I think that'll make the hair all jaggy. Someone I used to work with who worked for a trading card company said he used to spend all day just doing cutouts, and for ones like this (or Steve Nash), he'd have to cut them out and then paint back some of the hair to make it look natural.

 

You can always use a duplicate layer of the image and then use Adjust>Threshold to build a mask to select the background and then apply that to the original image.

But, as in most photo-altering procedures, it's probably wise to spend about twice as much time thinking about "why" as you do thinking about "how."

 

Not to mention, not sure I've seen the World Series trophy cutout that often. Maybe this is me, living in a non-baseball crazy area, but it doesn't seem to be as iconic as the Stanley Cup or the Lombardi Trophy.

 

You don't. That wasn't the point.

The point was simply offering a challenge to someone who said he could cut out ANYTHING in 20 minutes. I say there is no photo of Sharapova with her hair flying that can be done that quickly. No matter how meticulous you are, stringy hair is a nightmare. The blur tool can cover up some of the inevitable jaggedness, but it's still a time-consuming burden.

And in any tennis cutout, you have to decide three things:

1. Use photo with racket in front of a player's body or with only the frame showing (easy).

2. Use photo of racket estended outside of a player's body but forget trying to cut out inside the frame (easy, but it's a pretty obvious cheat).

3. Use a photo of racket outside of a player's body but try to cut out around the strings (good luck; I did this once, will never do it again). It ain't brain surgery . . . it takes longer.

 

Not what I said. Read my post again before you decide to be a dick.

 

It's amazing what threads can turn into on this site.

 

I just don't cut out tennis photos.

It works for me.

 

It was a challenge made in the spirit of amusement, not in the spirit of being a dick.

But interpret it anyway you want.

 

Fair enough.