Giant Step 2: Make a Selection

Creating a Giant in Photopea: Selecting our Giant

Our first task in getting our guy into the city photo is to make a selection of him. There are several ways to create a selection in Photopea, so let's use a method that will work well with our current image and give us a fairly accurate beginning selection: the Magnetic Lasso Select Tool. The Magnetic Lasso Select Tool allows us to create selections by tracing the outline of an object in our image. For this to work, we need to start with an image where the object we want to select (the guy) is significantly different in color from the rest of the image. The Magnetic Lasso Select Tool works by recognizing the difference between light and dark colors in the image and uses them to define the selection area. If the color differences are slight, this tool will not work as well. But since our guy is darker than most of the background, we should get a fairly accurate selection.

Click the Magnetic Lasso Select Tool...

If you don't see the Magnetic Lasso Select Tool, you may need to right click the Lasso Select Tool and then click the Magnetic Lasso Select Tool...
Zoom in on the guy's right foot by pointing at his toe and then pressing and holding the Alt key and then rolling the mouse wheel up (alternately, you can click the Zoom Tool...

and then click on the guy's foot to zoom in)
Using the Magnetic Lasso Select Tool, click at the tip of the guy's toe, and then SLOWLY drag up and around his body...

Don't worry about getting every little piece of him as we will fix any selection errors in just a second (also, don't worry about his backpack - we just want him)

Here are a few things to keep in mind as you move around the outline of the guy:

Notice that the above direction says to go SLOWLY, this is important! If you drag too fast with the Magnetic Lasso Select Tool, Photopea is unable to analyze the area and determine where the color difference is located. This will cause the selection line to be laid down inaccurately. Have some patience when making this initial selection around the guy and you will have less work to do to clean up the selection later in this step.
As you move around his body, you can reposition what is visible on the screen by pressing and holding the spacebar and clicking on the image and dragging to move to a new area. When you release the spacebar, you can continue outlining the guy.
The Magnetic Lasso Select Tool drops points - little squares - at various positions around the guy. These squares are there to let you know where Photopea has defined a change in direction of the selection outline. If you try to go around a curve or encounter a pointed area and Photopea does not drop a square, you can force a square to be dropped by clicking the left mouse button. This will prevent Photopea from making wide shifts in the selection line, which can cause areas that we want to include to be skipped.

When you have dragged around his entire body and return to the tip of his toe, click back on the spot where you first clicked to complete the selection of the guy...

Note that if you have a difficult time clicking on the exact spot you started that you can simply double-click the mouse button to complete the selection

While the Magnetic Lasso Select Tool works great for making general selections, there will inevitably be areas that are either missed or included when they should not be. These areas are easy to correct.

Click the Lasso Select Tool
Zoom in on the guy's foot...
Start at his toe and work your way up the guy's leg using the Lasso Tool to modify the selection

The Lasso Select Tool has a pretty simple function. Click and drag to draw a line, and when you release the mouse button Photopea converts the line to a selection. For what we are doing, since we already have a selection, we need to use the Lasso Select Tool to modify the selection. We can either add to or take away from the current selection.

To add to your selection, press and hold the Shift key while you click and drag a line around the area you want to add
To delete from your selection, press and hold the Alt key while you click and drag a line around the area you want to remove

You should always try to make a circular-ish line when using the Lasso Select Tool. This does not mean that you must always draw circles, just in a circular fashion. You want your line to end up close to where you began. It doesn't have to go to the exact same spot, just in the general area. This is because when you release the mouse button to apply the selection change, Photopea draws a straight line between where you release the mouse button and the first place you clicked. If the two points are not relatively close to each other, you can get all kinds of strange results.

Work around the rest of the guy's body adding to or removing from the selection as needed until you have an accurate outline...

A couple of things to keep in mind as you go around the guy (you can look at my image above to clarify the items below):

Individual pixels do not really matter - try to create a selection that is accurate, but do not waste a lot of time on one or two pixels (these will likely not be visible in the final image anyway)
Make sure to select only his fingers and not the parts of the car between them
Be sure to remove the area between his arms
A small piece of the backpack is actually covering the back of his head - ignore that and give him a round head
Again, ignore his backpack - we just want him

Now that we have an accurate selection of our guy, the next step is to get him into our city image.