An important part of any good graphic designer's skillset is good deep edging techniques. Use Photoshop's polygonal lasso tool to cut out objects and backgrounds from pictures.

Zoom in quite close and make your selection close cut to the object that you want to cut out. You can also create a clipping patch with the same selection for use in other applications (like Freehand), which will leave the whole pic in tact, but create a display mask to only show your object.

Another technique called masking is maybe a better alternative in certain applications. A mask will display just your selection and you can use the quick mask button to quickly create your masks. A mask will display only what's within the selection and hide the rest of the image. This way you can always update your mask if you want to include other parts or tweak it until you're happy.

This graphic design service is often offered by photo printing shops.

Sharpen your skills by taking old photographs and scanning them in at 300-600dpi depending on the size you want to enlarge them to.

I recommend using Photoshop. The clone tool is your friend when removing dust particles and scratches. You can also add colour to your black and white scans by using the selection tools and colourising certain parts of your picture and get great effects.

If your scans are bad quality (e.g. out of magazines etc), you can use blurring effectively to remove scan lines and paper texture that might have been picked up by your scanner.

When designing banners that exceed 3 meters (+-6ft) in width and height it's important to keep a few things in mind.

Graphic Design Tips for large banners:

• Work at the right resolution
  Your resolution should be at least 100dpi for good quality printing.
  


• Work in scales
  You can design your artwork in scales of the right size, e.g. 50%, or 25% of the original artwork, leaving it to the printer to print full size. At smaller scales, make sure your resolution is higher to compensate for loss of quality when scaling bigger.
  
  Keep your design simple
  Make sure that your branding is in tact and large enough to view from the desired distance. Don't clutter your design with too much images. People are only looking for a few seconds!!!