Please help

Sigal

Please, help...

Can someone please tell me what is the best way to get rid of the background in this photo?

I want to take the two people and put them on a nicer background.

What will be the best tool to cut them out of the photo, and do I have to setup a feather size?

Have no idea how to do that :dunno

I tried to mark all the background with the magic tool and delete it.

Then I tried to cut the people with the polygonal lasso but the cut was too sharp.

Do you have any totorial on montage?

Thank you very much,

Sigal

Sweet_small.jpg

USAIR

I don't think there is any real easy way but you might try this
Here's the main link to Photoshop Support.com theres a good search engine there.

Fred

MarkR

The easiest way is probably to use the Filter | Extract command. You'll probably lose a little bit-- especially in the man's spiky hair, but it will be a lot easier than manipulating Channels and Blend If functions.

edgework

Sigal wrote:

Please, help...

Can someone please tell me what is the best way to get rid of the background in this photo?

I want to take the two people and put them on a nicer background.

What will be the best tool to cut them out of the photo, and do I have to setup a feather size?

Have no idea how to do that

I tried to mark all the background with the magic tool and delete it.

Then I tried to cut the people with the polygonal lasso but the cut was too sharp.

Do you have any totorial on montage?

Thank you very much,

Sigal

Not everything yields to a button or a filter. Any effort to get Photoshop to do the work for you will result in twice the time trying to clean up the mask. You'd be much better off going into Quick Mask, selecting a brush that matches the softeness/focus of the edges and painting the thing in. Shouldn't take much trouble at all. The spiky hair can be a pain, but if you have a tablet, set it to pressure sensitive and a small diameter and you can get a reasonable hair mask out of it.

Usually when an image is an appropriate candidate for using one of the channels to create a decent mask, you know it immediately: either there are clear and distinct color regions or high contrast differences to help you along. Whenever I've tried to get clever with an image like this and pull some magic out of my hat, I end up eating my hat.

cletus

Sigal,

What software are you using?

If you have Photoshop CS or CS2 then The Hobbyist got it right - Filter > Extract is the way to go. It's not the easiest tool to use so you'll probably need search for some tutorials on it.

If you have a pre-CS version of Photoshop I'd say your best bet is a combo of rough selection with the laso and masking. The basic idea is that you use the laso to get close then you save your selection as a channel. Once you have your selection in channel form you can use PS's painting tools to fine tune the channel. When you're done you can then change the channel back into a selection. You'll want to search for some tutorials on masking and channels to get a better idea of how this works.

Edit: Be sure to read Edgework's post... lot's of good information in there!

dandill

Sigal wrote:

Can someone please tell me what is the best way to get rid of the background in this photo?

I don't know if it is the best way, but Russell Borwn's recent tutorial, at http://av.adobe.com/russellbrown/AdvancedMasking.mov, on using the image to build a mask may be hlepful.

Sigal

Thank you
Thank you all, I'm quite new to Photoshop so all these talks about masks and channels are a little bit confusing to me, but I'll check whatever you sent me, and will let you know how it went :

By the way, I'm using Photoshop 7, don't have the CS yet.

Hey, if you don't try, you don't learn :

Thank you very much

Sigal

Sigal

Hmmm

USAIR wrote:

I don't think there is any real easy way but you might try this
Here's the main link to Photoshop Support.com theres a good search engine there.

Fred

Ok, I tried this tutorial but it doesn't work for me, I guess because I'm not on CS.

When I do this part of the tutorial:

"A new alpha channel will now be visible. Press "Ctrl/Cmd+D" to Deselect and click on Alpha 1 in the channels palette.

The main window will now turn black and white. The advantage of using a channel is the ability to fine tune the selection without effecting the original image. Black represents the areas that we want to keep and white, the areas to be discarded."

My picture becomes totally black.

Will try something else.

Thanks Fred

Sigal

Edgework - You are a Genius !!

edgework wrote:

Not everything yields to a button or a filter. Any effort to get Photoshop to do the work for you will result in twice the time trying to clean up the mask. You'd be much better off going into Quick Mask, selecting a brush that matches the softeness/focus of the edges and painting the thing in. Shouldn't take much trouble at all. The spiky hair can be a pain, but if you have a tablet, set it to pressure sensitive and a small diameter and you can get a reasonable hair mask out of it.

Usually when an image is an appropriate candidate for using one of the channels to create a decent mask, you know it immediately: either there are clear and distinct color regions or high contrast differences to help you along. Whenever I've tried to get clever with an image like this and pull some magic out of my hat, I end up eating my hat.

I did what you suggested... and look at that !!!

I'm so happy, I could cry

Sweet_new.jpg

Thank you very much

If you have any more thoughts about this - I would love to hear them.

You're the BEST

Sigal

USAIR

Oh Shoot!!!

I was hoping I was the best

Fred

Sigal

USAIR wrote:

Oh Shoot!!!

I was hoping I was the best

Fred

Surprise surprise....

rutt

Sigal wrote:

I did what you suggested... and look at that !!!

If you have any more thoughts about this - I would love to hear them.

You're the BEST

Sigal

Of course, Edgework is the very best, but now that you've done the hard work, why not fix the easy things: red eye and skin tone. There are tons of red eye correction techniques, but a very easy approach is just to use the sponge tool to desaturate the red eye and make catch lights instead. Both people's flesh is too magenta as opposed to yellow (too much of that wine?). I fixed with LAB curves, but it's also easy to fix in any color space. See: this tutorial, for example.

Sigal

Thank you

rutt wrote:

Of course, Edgework is the very best, but now that you've done the hard work, why not fix the easy things: red eye and skin tone. There are tons of red eye correction techniques, but a very easy approach is just to use the sponge tool to desaturate the red eye and make catch lights instead. Both people's flesh is too magenta as opposed to yellow (too much of that wine?). I fixed with LAB curves, but it's also easy to fix in any color space. See: this tutorial, for example.

Hey, thank you Rutt, I saw your message just now. I thought I did remove the Red eye (?) and I don't really like Yellowish skin. But still, thanks for helping, I really appriciate it.

I did check the skin tones tutorials here and find them very helpful but in this photo, it became to Yellowish to my taste, I prefer it when they (My husband and me, by the way ) look happy from the wine...

Cheers,

Sigal