This stunning statue of Artemis was found at the Roman ruins of Ephesus in Turkey. I photographed it in a museum not far from the ruins, and although it looked beautiful indoors, I felt that it would also look great in an alcove that I photographed near the famous Library in the center of the archeological site.
Because the background behind the statue was fairly uniform in the museum, I was able to use the magic wand tool to select the background, and then using Select > inverse I grabbed the statue itself minus the background wall. I magnified the photo to 200% to examine the edge of the selection to make sure it was perfect, and in a few places I saw that it needed some work. I used the lasso tool in Photoshop to make minor corrections (adding or subtracting selected areas along the edge of the statue). To add to a selection, you must hold the shift key down, while to subtract from a selection, the alt (or option) key must be held down.
I then feathered the edge by one pixel (Select > modify > feather in CS4) to make the edge of the statue look natural in front of the stonework of the alcove. At that point I copied it to the clipboard (that temporary holding place for a single photo) with Edit > copy and pasted it into the niche using Edit > paste. Finally, I selected the move tool and moved the statue into place, and with Edit > transform > scale, I sized Artemis until I was pleased with the proportions.
This is probably how Artemis looked 2000 years ago, so I was very happy with the results.
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