The author of this tutorial is Tammy Russotto.
The imagination of a child often grants ordinary objects magical properties, and even a window can become the source of surprising discoveries, if you look at it through the eyes of a child. In her tutorial Tammy Russotto demonstrates how the AKVIS SmartMask plug-in can be used to create extraordinary pictures.

Use the Drop Area Pencil
to draw over areas that you want to delete (in this case the background behind the giraffe).
Use the Keep Area Pencil
to outline the image you want to save (the giraffe).

button to start processing the image.
Adjust the "furry" border of the image with the Transition Area Pencil
.

The result will be shown on a transparent background.

button to apply the results and return to the photo editor.

button.
The edges are too rough. To resolve this you can increase the Mask Smoothing parameter to 10 and restart processing.

button to close the plug-in window and send the image to the photo editor.
- Switch to the window with the image;
- Choose the command Select -> Select All from the menu (highlight the active layer);
- Copy the selection to the clipboard (command Edit -> Copy);
- Switch to the window with the sky;
- Paste the fragment on a new layer (command Edit -> Paste).
As a result, all three images will be in one file, and the layers palette will look like this:

Move the giraffe to the left of the window and apply the transformation (press Enter or press the OK button).

