Toronto Photography Meetup Group

I am trying to extract an image so that the entire background is white. Much like this here



I'm looking for the most efficient method of doing this as I have a tonne to work on. Can't really fix how they were photographed. Currently using the lasso tool to select the frame and then deleting the background. Sounds like a very cumbersome way of doing it. The wand tool helps, but runs into problems with lighter coloured frames that are close to the background.

Any tips would be greatly helpful.

Pen tool is most effecient but time consuming .. You can use the magoc wand and then add or subtract the selection with the quick select tool . In lightroom you can take ur exposure brush boost it 4 stops and make sure automask is selected and start brushing anything u want white

The way I've been doing it for years is to:

1. Make a "Layer by Copy" of the whole
2. Lasso out as best I can the actual object
3. Make a "Layer by Cut"
4. Hide all the other layers except for the cut layer
5. Use the Eraser to "trim" finely where you need
6. Unhide any other layers to make sure you're not over cutting anywhere
7. On the layer that you've done all this work, Magic wand the white
8. Hide that layer, and then select the orginal "Layer by Copy" from Step 1, then you can unhide it, and delete the background.

This may be a long way round, but I find its the fastest. Now, with CS5 tools, the fill and delete with Content aware has made this even faster for me.

quick and dirty...not properly:

1- double click image to unblock
2 - make a new layer, fill white
3- drag the image above white-filled layer
4- add a white mask
5- paint black on the mask, revealing the white underground.
6- use a combination of softness/hardness and opacity settings to obtain a natural blend
7- if you make a mistake paint white (hit x) and then refine with black (hit x) again

good luck.

I second the pen tool. People make better aesthetic calls than algorithms. Plus, with practice you can use the pen tool rather quickly.

don't forget the shadows... you are losing the shadows in ur shot

What I once tried before of extracting a doll from a dark blue background was to do this in Photoshop:
1. Go to Select Menu
2. Select Color range. Change the Selection Preview to White Matte.
3. Click on area of the color you want selected and it normally selects every similar tone to it.
4. Keep on clicking on areas you want to be included.
5. Select OK.
6. If there are some color similar to the tone you selected on the image you want left behind, you can use the Magic Wand, hold Alt down to deselect the area you want to be don't want to replace.
7. Select Refine Edges for more fine tuning.

Hope this one helps you. It helped me a lot when trying to remove blue from my doll's hair and convert it to light purple