How to Make a MaskPro Image Cutout

In this tutorial you will see the process of creating a cutout of a complex image containing tracery objects and transparencies in an Adobe Photoshop MaskPro 4 plug-in. 

{mosimage cw=200 align=left}The little girl wearing a fancy dress in the image is photographed in a group and the background is very cluttered. The selection process is to be rather complex as the background has many colors, there's a crown on the head, and the dress has transparent parts. I chose MaskPro to deal with the selection due to a versatile tool-box of the plug-in.

To create the selection we do the following:
1. Copy background layer (Layer>Duplicate Layer) and open the image in MaskPro by going to Filters>OnOne>MaskPro 4

2. I started the selection process from the crown on the girl's head. With Keep and Drop eyedroppers I select Keep and Drop colors for the crown.
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3. Then we use Magic Brush tool on the crown, painting over it:

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4. Then we select the remaining contours with Magic Pen. First the left contour (I decided to sacrifice the stray hair),
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then - the right.
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5. Then I remove the remaining background with the Brush (Erase mode). It is very conveniently done in the Mask view
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6. Now we shall make the dress sleeves and part of the skirt transparent. I created new drop and keep color sets for the Magic Brush. The Drop sets are different for the right and the left contours as the background is different.

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Note also the Keep colors: you mesure them with the eydropper tool and then, in the Keep palette double click the color and modify it, removing the unnecessary shade given by the transparent object's background.

7.Use Magic Brush on the transparent parts of the dress and the cutout is now complete.
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We can return to Adobe PhotoShop (File>Save/Apply )

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