How to make a silhouette

OK really simple post, normally I just Google image search for a silhouette when I'm after one. For example we recently had a murder mystery night for which I made the place names:

Now these were really easy and Google images returned great samples to use, but it's really easy to turn a standard image to a silhouette... and here's how.

1. Open a stock image, remember you'll loose detail so you want one where the shape is clearly defined.

2. Select around the image - here I've just used a combination of the magic wand + select tool to remove the background. You don't need to remove the background but it's easier to see whats going on.

3. With the selection in place, get the brush tool out set it massive + black, paint and you're done.

The feet were a little tricky because the bird was on a branch, but you can edit that however you like. You don't need to use Photoshop, but the layers make it easy.

But should you want a pigeon silhouette, feel free to use this one

p.s. Not that I'm condoning this, but if somebody had water marked a stock silhouette this also works very well to remove a watermark, as you select the shape and just fill it in yourself.