Some (very) simple tips, part 2
Continued from Some (very) simple tips.
I still get that nagging voice saying: “They know all that, you are not telling them anything new”, but I also still meet designers who don’t know these things. I recently encountered a designer who cut out everything using the eraser tool.
Most things I write about are not rocket science. And me aiming to be accessible and casting a wide net with this blog doesn’t help. But I am surprised on a nearly daily basis by what people I run into do not know.
So, to continue with the very simple tips, I give you some image editing tricks.
These tricks are not aimed at the professional designers out there who gleefully spend a day doing the perfect extraction. These tricks are for people who need to get decent results, fast.
Webmasters, content managers, and so on.
You may think “this looks shopped, I can tell from the pixels and having seen many shops in my time”, and you may well be right. The thing is; once you get asked to change all the backgrounds of all the mug shots in the employee facebook, you’ll understand that sometimes you are perfectionist, and sometimes you are pragmatic.
Out there in the real world you don’t always have the latest & greatest software, all the time you would like or the best raw material possible. More often than not you are working against the clock, with cheap stock-photo material or even pictures the boss took with his/her consumer model camera.
These techniques are therefore geared towards portability; they were done in Photoshop but should work in Pixel or the GIMP also. I also deliberately used stock material, which is less than perfect. The shots are great, don’t be insulted Pia J (flower) and Tchago (balloon), but they were not RAW images from a 30 Megapixel camera, but rather pixellated JPEGS from a stock photo site, just as you’d encounter in the real world.
I worked quick & dirty, these are not examples of perfectionism, these a tips & tricks, done on a lost Sunday afternoon. Feel free to leave further refinements on these techniques or your own tips in the comments.
Extract from background
The Extract filter
Many people complain to me that the Extract filter doesn’t work for them. It creates jagged edges and simply cuts where it shouldn’t. This is because people use too wide a brush to create the outline.
Use a drawing tablet and a thin line, enlarge the image until you feel comfortable, put the line over (not around) the edge of the object you wish to cut out and use the eraser tool when your line is too thick. Work with care and this filter will become your bestest buddy.
Photoshop has a great filter, the Extract Filter (for CS4 you’ll have to download it separately). I haven’t found something just as good in other packages, but other than the extraction bit this tip works everywhere, and whatever method to actually extract the picture you use.
Before you extract the image, create a layer copy and hide it.
Create a hidden copy of your image
Once you are happy with your result, hit ‘make it so’ (Or ‘OK’ for sticklers) and find yourself back in the main editing window. Now, select your extracted image (CTRL-click the layer in the layers palette) and select your hidden layer copy. Create a mask, hiding everything outside your selection.
Extracting the image
No matter how you extracted, bits are going to be wrong, like this rope
Now, using a very thin, soft, brush and your drawing tablet, paint white in your mask to recover those bits the extract filter mistakenly cut out.
Paint the missing bits back in, in your mask layer
You could use the ‘history brush’ but I find that problematic for two reasons: 1) It doesn’t know what you want back, you do. I find it easier to paint and erase in the mask layer than to rely on the history brush. 2) Not all software has this tool.
Just for kicks, our balloon in a new background...
Another quick & dirty extract
Here’s a flower. You need it separated from the background. Maybe you don’t like blue, maybe your website’s background is white… whatever the reason, it needs to be done yesterday. (As with everything.)
Go to your layers palette and select ‘channels’ to get your RGB channels. Pick the one with the best contrast, and copy your image in its entirety. Paste in a new image.
Slide your brightness and contrast sliders until your object clearly stands out from the background. Take care that no (or as few as possible) areas in your object match your background.
Use the magic wand to select your background. In a new layer, fill your selection with solid black. Then invert your selection and fill with solid white.
Get your background as contrasting from your object as possible
Go back to your original image, mask your layer and paste your black & white mask into the mask layer.
A neatly cut out flower.
Oh noes! Wrong flower!
You just finished your nice yellow flower and now your boss tells you there’s a special on red flowers that week… OK, we can fix that.
First we need to separate the flower from the stem, since generally the stem will be green no matter what. Select your extracted flower and go into Quick Mask mode. Invert your selection first, of course.
Now, using a hard brush, carefully paint out the areas you do not need selected. When you switch back to regular, you’ll find all the areas that were pink in quick mask are now selected. Invert your selection again, and presto.
Paint a new selection...
You could use this method to fix errors in your selection, also, of course. In fact, that is part of the reason I’m showing you this. I didn’t. Like I said: Lazy afternoon. Quick & dirty, etc.
The power of Quick Mask...
Go back into your channels palette and select a channel with enough contrast. You want to preserve as much detail as possible.
Copy your selection, and in a new layer, paste it over your image. Now, if you wanted a white flower, you’d be done. But you need a red flower.
Create yet another layer and fill your selection with red. Now choose a blending mode which gives you the best results, try several until you are happy.
A red flower
Not perfect? Try adjusting your white flower (that you copied from the channels palette) layer’s brightness & contrast.
No Comments yet.