cutting with a path

[whuntumighty]

this is prob. a very basic question for advanced illustrators but is there a way to trace a path with the pen tool around a specific part of a picture and cut it from the original? its been driving me crazy tryin to figure it out. i can make a clipping mask which is close but the excess of the pic still remains. this is my first post too so if you know how could you just drop it in an email and send it to easylike@aol.com. thx!

[Scott Weichert]

Create a path like you would if you were going to use a clipping mask. Then, rather than creating the mask, use Pathfinder > Crop. This only works on vector data. If you're trying to crop an imported raster image, you can't. A clipping mask is the only way to hide portions of imported raster images.

[whuntumighty]

nice. i know this isnt a photoshop forum, but i really just want to cut things out of pictures using bezier curves. is there a way to do this via illustrator or photoshop? im working on a banner for a site and my concepts definitely
require images to be cut precisely around the edges. any alternatives?
any more advice would help. thanks again

[Husker]

Well can use a clipping mask in Illustrator to mask out the areas you don't want and use the "save for web" and save as a transparent gif or png.

[Scott Weichert]

Photoshop has a pen tool too. You can always use Photoshop and create a vector mask.

Kind of tough to give more suggestions without knowing your workflow.

[whuntumighty]

i tried saving it as a web gif and it still recognized the clipping border not the new image border. hm. i was just hoping there was a way to somehow do it with a path, kind of like using the lasso tools in photoshop to cut an image out but bezier style so the edges would be clean and round. i prefer illustrator to ps so i was hoping to stay there and the ps tools i know how to use are pretty much a freehand lasso (which is sloppy), a lasso that only does straight jagged
lines, a magnetic lasso (that i cant seem to get to stick to the things i want) or a magic wand that deletes half the image. im pretty much just trying to accomplish simple scrapbooking techniques like cutting a frying pan out of a mcdonalds ad, adding a 2 pt white stroke around it and putting it in a picture of Egypt but of course clean and way more creative. the pen tool in my opinion would be a great cutting device. just wish there was a way. i appreciate the advice tho. and if you think of anything pls tell...thanks

[TORCH511]

There really is not way to "cut" a photo in Illustrator. A raster image can not be an irregualr size anyway so even if you could you would still be left with excess outside the clipped area.