Inserting people in pictures

Hi. I've been trying, for quite some time, to figure how people use PS to have people in the wall paper they make. I know there are many pictures of models out there that would go very well with some of the wallpapers I want to make, but I'm not sure how to put them in. Do people actually zoom in and individually erase all the pixels around the model? Help would be appreciated, thanks.

nah, not erase

you can do it several ways though.

a)use the pen tool to draw a path around the person
and then make that path a selection.
or
use the lasso tool to make a selection around the person
Then you can copy and paste or drag the person from one image to the other.

b)add the image of the person to your psd file and then create a layer mask to mask the area around the person..



there are a bunch of other ways too

I'm pretty new to photoshop, so could you explain in a bit more detail how to use the layer mask effect? Thanks.

open the iamge of the person

open the image you want to add the person to

with the "move tool" drag the person photo into the image you want to add them to.

close the image of the person and keep the image you added them to open.

now in the layers pallet select the layer that contains the person.
you want to get rid of the background but keep the person.

so try making a selection around just what you want to keep (ie. the person) then at the bottom of the layers pallet click the "create a mask" button.

If that doesn't make any sense, I suggest reading the photoshop "help" files and then re-read this.

i use the magic wand and delete everything around

but then again, i'm fairly new to ps also...
and i suck at the pen tool
keep it up tornupinside

Even better...

Learn to use the "Extract" tool. It's really quite simple and does a pretty good job.

I would suggest making a copy of the layer with the persons picture, that way if you "Extract" to much you can paint back with your History Brush and replace lost image area.