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Cut and Paste Application


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Anyone know of a cut and paste application that you can cut out irregular shapes with? One where you just move your mouse around, connect the starting and ending point, the cut it out and drop it directly somewhere else?

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Do you mean like cutting a shape from one application and pasting it into another application, or just from one photo into another photo? You may need to be more specific.

I want to take my mouse and cut out a shape from an image of any sort, then be able to take the image and ONLY the image (no background) and past it directly on another image of my choice. I have tried all of the various photoshop elements techniques and none have really been satisfactory. Ideally I'd like to be able to combine some geometric shapes with freehand mouse movement. Let say you wanted to cut out a squadron patch image. Most of it is round. So an application that would allow me select the round part, then switch mid stream to vector to get the angled part of the patch banner at the bottom, then back to round, etc. I would love to have a really flexible cut and paste tool. Maybe it does not exist.

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Still confused because that's a common feature of PhotoShop. You may have to use different tools depending on the shape vs background... for instance, you may have to do 2 or 3 "cuts and pastes" using the best tool to cut out the different shapes which make up the thing you want to copy to a new image file. As you paste each "cut" into the new image, each paste will be a create a separate layer. Once you have all of the image you need, you then combine the separate layers back into one layer.

I'm using PhotoShop, not PhotoShop-Elements. It may be "Elements" doesn't include all of the tools you need. I'd look for a used copy of a full recent version of PhotoShop.

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Still confused because that's a common feature of PhotoShop. You may have to use different tools depending on the shape vs background... for instance, you may have to do 2 or 3 "cuts and pastes" using the best tool to cut out the different shapes which make up the thing you want to copy to a new image file. As you paste each "cut" into the new image, each paste will be a create a separate layer. Once you have all of the image you need, you then combine the separate layers back into one layer.

I'm using PhotoShop, not PhotoShop-Elements. It may be "Elements" doesn't include all of the tools you need. I'd look for a used copy of a full recent version of PhotoShop.

Gimp is a free photo editing software, comparable with Photoshop: www.gimp.org

Edited by dmk0210
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If you have Photoshop or similar, have you tried the "magic wand" or "magnetic lasso" selection tool? The latter allows you to select shapes fairly quickly to "cut & paste" portions of an image (like circular squadron badges similar to my signature pic below).

Don't forget, YouTube and Planet Photoshop are great places to learn photo editing techniques. :cheers:

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I have not tried the professional version of photoshop, but the tools tools available in elements are not quite as good as I would like. Lets say you were cutting out a patch from an image you scanned. The photoshop tools try to recognize the edge of the image and are not quite able to do that consistently. You can cut out ellipses/circles, but centering the ellipse/circle is hit and miss, and then once it is defined, you can't change the dimensions to refine your cut. You have to start over. Frustrating. Also, lets say you are successful with the circle part...then what about the banner part? I guess I just need more experience with these types of programs. I was able to do an okay job using FastStone capture by cutting in small segments all around the patch, but still, I would love something more powerful. It would be nice to be able to define the circular portion of the cut, then switch to a vector cut for the banner, all in the same operation. It is difficult to do it all "freehand" with a mouse, but parts of an image you might need to.

PlasticWep...your patch cut out is okay except I want to cut around the banner at the bottom precisely, with all of the angles and curves and be gnat's *** precise.

All of these iterations and workarounds....multiple layers, splicing sections together, etc. are like going over your shoulder to scratch your butt. I just want a powerful, flexible, geometry based application that will enable me to cut out exactly what I want in a straightforward way. I should be able to easily switch between circular, vector, or freehand modes, all within the same cutting operation. If anyone knows of anything like that out there, I am all ears.

Edited by DutyCat
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Yeah, Jennings is right. There's some tasks in photo editing that will still require editing manually...

I'm not familiar with Photoshop Elements (I'm using either Photoshop7 or CS3) but I'm guessing it would have the magnetic lasso tool which really is a neat cutting tool. Here's a demo on how easy it is (though the video sucks):

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I'm not sure about Elements but in Photoshop you can modify your selection by hitting shift select to add or alt select to subtract. And you can right click and choose transform selection which allows you to move your selection edges around more precisely. It will give you options like flip, skew stretch etc...So by magic wanding and then transforming your selection you can get pretty precise cuts. I hope that made sense and helps you out. But like I said, I don't know if Elements has all of those selection tools.

Bill

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