Photoshop Tutorial: Tearing A Photo To Reveal Another

Step 9: Select The Area To "Tear Out" Of The Image With The Lasso Tool

Grab your Lasso Tool from the Tools palette, or press L to quickly select it:

Then drag out a selection around the area you want to "tear out" of the image. I'm going to select an area from the top of the image to the bottom through the center of the woman's face. Try to make your selection rough and jagged as you're dragging to create the "torn" look:

Step 10: Select The Layer Mask On "Layer 1" And Fill The Selection With Black

We're going to fill our selection with black, and we're going to do that on the layer mask of "Layer 1" so that we hide the woman's face in the area inside the selection. To do that, first click on the layer mask thumbnail on "Layer 1" in the Layers palette to select it:

Then use the keyboard shortcut Alt+Backspace (Win) / Option+Delete (Mac) to fill the selection with black. The part of the woman's face that was inside the selection is now hidden from view, revealing the black background behind it:

Press Ctrl+D (Win) / Command+D (Mac) to clear the selection.

Step 11: Apply The "Spatter" Filter To Enhance The Jagged Lines

Let's make our torn edges look a little more torn using the "Spatter" filter. Go up to the Filter menu at the top of the screen, choose Brush Strokes, and then choose Spatter. This brings up the "Filter Gallery" dialog box set to the "Spatter" options on the right. You may want to experiment with the settings on your own, keeping an eye on the preview window on the left of the dialog box, but I'm going to set my Spray Radius to 10 and my Smoothness all the way to 15:

Click OK to exit out of the dialog box. My torn edges through the center of the image now look a bit more torn: