You're making a mask. Yes it will change the lighting. Or if you don't want to do it that way cheat. Use the same idea you did but save the depth and the alpha channle and use one of those for a pattern to cut with..... Tip: In the big long list of Mighty pete tips. before you cut pick a color from your object. A color that represents the object color well. in phtotoshop you can actually pick several colors or even a pattern. Fill the sky with this color, colors or pattern before you cut then the anti alialsing will bleed to the proper color instead. of the sky color. make sence? Drop your alpha on top of the original image duplicate the original and drop it on top of the alpha. Switch to alpha then select the white, switch to the top image fill with color select inverse copy, paste. Perfect cut everytime.