Removing Background In Photoshop CS2

[MontyV]

Ok I'm just learing to use photoshop. I bought a book to go over the basics that has sample projects to follow through the whole book. I started applying a some techniques but ran into a problem. In the book it has sample pictures where colors are opposite or images have straight lines. How do you change a background of a picture that is similar in color and uneven lines.

This is what I have tried.

1.) Magic Background Eraser
2.) Lasso
3.) Pen Tool

Does it just take patience with the pen tool and keeping the anchor points close together? Is there a special skill you need to have to use the lasso correctly (this thing is hard)? Is there a trick to this background eraser because it only seems to work well with colors completely opposite of each other. Really what I am trying to do is take a person and place them in a different background but have it look as smooth as possible. How do you guys do it?

[LiLcRaZyFuZzY]

it really depends on the background color, does it have a lot of constrast with the front color? if yes you can play with the tolerance of the magic wand tool. the lower the tolerance, the more precise it will be on which parts (colors) it includes in the selection.

The pen tool is really nice to select curvy and precise objects, be sure to zoom in a lot.
As well as for the lasso.
If you don't need to be very precise, you can use the polygonal lasso.

[MontyV]

Is there a way with the magic wand to sort set a low tolerance and outline the area around the person then have the magic wand select the rest of the background also. For example if i used the wand around the person then the remaining background is not selected but because its set at a low tolerance i have to keep selecting. Is there a way to just select the rest of the area?

[LiLcRaZyFuZzY]

yes if you change the tolerance then press on shift and click on the area you want to select, that will add the selection to the present selection
if you press on alt it will substract it to the present selection

[fmfarnaz]

I believe you can select the image(for example use the laso tool) no matter what background it has. Then use inverse selection (a menu option) which means select everything besides what I have just selected. Then press delete. Which deletes the background. You can then save the image as a transparent .gif. :)

[LiLcRaZyFuZzY]

or a more precise method to do this is select the option "edit in quick mask mode" (shortcut "Q") the icon is under the fore and background color on the tool palette

then select the brush tool and paint the wished area (the foreground) and select the other icon "edit in normal mode" and it will give you a selection of the inverse of what you just painted

[welsh]

http://www.artworld.si/extracting_images_with_photoshop-tutorial-240.art

[MontyV]

Magic wand seems to work well when colors are completely different. The inverse selection works nicely when I can precisely outline images. The quick mask sounds interensting and I will have to do some reading on that option. Its great to hear the different ways of handling this. Any helpful links to masking would be great. Thanks everyone.

[LiLcRaZyFuZzY]

there is a part about quick mask mode in the link welsh gave you (last method)

[The Little Guy]

You should try the megnetic laso (click and hold on the laso tool)

This tool is kinda cool. select a portion say you want to select a table, click on the edge of the table, and drag the mouse around the edges of the table. The megnetic laso will megnatize its self to the table faily well.

To finish the selection, either
1. Double click
2. Bring the tool back to the first selection (their will be a dot next to the tool saying your on the first selection)

Now take the laso tool and hold

1. Shift to add to the selection
Or
2. Alt to remove from the selection

If you dont need the laso tool, then go to on the top menu bar "Select" and down to "invert" then on the keyboard press Delete.

[Spletne Strani]

1. You can play with the "Tolerance" - when the magic wand is selected (higher the tolerance, more colour range will be captured).

2. If you need more selected areas, than press "shift" and click again (you can do this with another tool to - maybe with lasso, if wanted area contains more of diferent colour ranges) - just hold shift and start selecting (by the way - with an "alt" key, you can do the oposit - deselect a certain area).

3. If the background colours are mixed up, but you have a foreground in one colour (or colour range), you can select a foreground and than go to > Select > Inverse (still dont forget to use the "shift" and "alt" key to modify the selection).

Spletne Strani (http://www.okvir.net)