cropping smoothly around an image

In article ,
"" wrote:

hi all!

i have a photo with a white background and i would like to crop aorund the edges smoothly (important!) leaving a white space of about 5mm around the edges, how can i do this in photoshop? i can only find cropping tools for predefined shapes.

Use the magnetic lasso tool first. then smooth out the outline using the ordinary lasso. Finally use expand selection to create the border.

Hey Stewy thanks for help

Can you expand upon what you mean by "smoothing out the outline "by using the ordinary lasso"?

regards

Marc

Stewy wrote:

In article ,
"" wrote:

hi all!

i have a photo with a white background and i would like to crop aorund the edges smoothly (important!) leaving a white space of about 5mm around the edges, how can i do this in photoshop? i can only find cropping tools for predefined shapes.

Use the magnetic lasso tool first. then smooth out the outline using the ordinary lasso. Finally use expand selection to create the border.

In article , mcyi2mr3
@googlemail.com says…

hi all!

i have a photo with a white background and i would like to crop aorund the edges smoothly (important!) leaving a white space of about 5mm around the edges, how can i do this in photoshop? i can only find cropping tools for predefined shapes.

kind regards

Marc

Question: is your subject image on a white background, all of the way around it? If so, use the Magic Wand Tool, to select the white area. You may need to experiment with the tolerance setting, but if you have white, start with a lower # and work up a bit at a time. You can also press Ctrl, as you do more selecitons, if you are missing a few to add to the Selection. Once you have the background selected, Save Selection (name it something like "Outline."), then choose Select>Modify>Contract, again experimenting with the # of pixels, as there is not a direct way to specify 5mm, but you could hit Ctrl-R to get the rulers, set units to mm, then do some guides to indicate 5mm from the subject in one spot, and match that, as you explore the Contract setting. Save new Selection as something different, i.e. "Outline 5mm."

This will allow you to knockout the subject, but remember to actually Crop the image, you can only Crop in a Square or a Rectangle. You can Ctrl-c (Copy) this outlined with 5mm white and drop into another image, or use the Selection as a Clipping Path and do a GIF for the Web or an EPS for use in PageMaker/ InDesign/Quark.

Hunt

The easiest way to go about this would be to use the Crop Tool and crop your image to the desired size. The next thing to do is go to Image->Canvas Size. Click the "Relative" check box and set your size to 10mm for both the width and height. This will give you a 5mm border around your image.

Hunt wrote:

In article , mcyi2mr3
@googlemail.com says…

hi all!

i have a photo with a white background and i would like to crop aorund the edges smoothly (important!) leaving a white space of about 5mm around the edges, how can i do this in photoshop? i can only find cropping tools for predefined shapes.

kind regards

Marc

Question: is your subject image on a white background, all of the way around it? If so, use the Magic Wand Tool, to select the white area. You may need to experiment with the tolerance setting, but if you have white, start with a lower # and work up a bit at a time. You can also press Ctrl, as you do more selecitons, if you are missing a few to add to the Selection. Once you have the background selected, Save Selection (name it something like "Outline."), then choose Select>Modify>Contract, again experimenting with the # of pixels, as there is not a direct way to specify 5mm, but you could hit Ctrl-R to get the rulers, set units to mm, then do some guides to indicate 5mm from the subject in one spot, and match that, as you explore the Contract setting. Save new Selection as something different, i.e. "Outline 5mm."
This will allow you to knockout the subject, but remember to actually Crop the image, you can only Crop in a Square or a Rectangle. You can Ctrl-c (Copy) this outlined with 5mm white and drop into another image, or use the Selection as a Clipping Path and do a GIF for the Web or an EPS for use in PageMaker/ InDesign/Quark.

Hunt

wrote:

hi all!

i have a photo with a white background and i would like to crop aorund the edges smoothly (important!) leaving a white space of about 5mm around the edges, how can i do this in photoshop? i can only find cropping tools for predefined shapes.

kind regards

Marc

First of all "Crop" is the wrong term. What you want to do is make a good selection around the object and delete or mask out the background. Best way, though not easy, is with the Pen. Another possibility is the Extract filter. There are other ways.

Here’s a tutorial (there are many on the web). You don’t need to make it an actual Clipping Path unless you are putting it into another program like Quark. You can turn the path into a selection and make a mask with that. You can also stroke the path or the selection to get your white outline.

http://www.sketchpad.net/paths3.htm

—
Comic book sketches and artwork:
http://www.sover.net/~hannigan/edjh.html
Comics art for sale:
http://www.sover.net/~hannigan/batsale.html

I suppose that "Crop" would be the wrong term if knocking out everything, but a specific subject matter. However the way that I have understood the dilemma is that a "Crop" is needed. Besides what in the world would compel you to utilize a (ahem) multi-page program like (ahem) Quark (pronouced Quack) to knockout an image. Illustrator would be my first bet. Not a piece of software designed for books and catalogs. You don’t need to turn the path into a selection to create a Layer Mask, you can use the path to create a Vector Mask which is much cleaner…unless you wanted to apply filters, adjustments, or hand paint the mask.

edjh: Maybe clarification of the issue at hand is needed?

Enjoy…

edjh wrote:

wrote:

hi all!

i have a photo with a white background and i would like to crop aorund the edges smoothly (important!) leaving a white space of about 5mm around the edges, how can i do this in photoshop? i can only find cropping tools for predefined shapes.

kind regards

Marc

First of all "Crop" is the wrong term. What you want to do is make a good selection around the object and delete or mask out the background. Best way, though not easy, is with the Pen. Another possibility is the Extract filter. There are other ways.

Here’s a tutorial (there are many on the web). You don’t need to make it an actual Clipping Path unless you are putting it into another program like Quark. You can turn the path into a selection and make a mask with that. You can also stroke the path or the selection to get your white outline.

http://www.sketchpad.net/paths3.htm

—
Comic book sketches and artwork:
http://www.sover.net/~hannigan/edjh.html
Comics art for sale:
http://www.sover.net/~hannigan/batsale.html

Thanks for everyones comments here its been really informative. However with regard to smoothing the outline, what im looking for is photoshops equivalent to flash’s "soften fill edges" tool, is there one? (ive tried anti-aliasing and feathering to no avail)

Thanks

Marc

CS2 Shaman wrote:

I suppose that "Crop" would be the wrong term if knocking out everything, but a specific subject matter. However the way that I have understood the dilemma is that a "Crop" is needed. Besides what in the world would compel you to utilize a (ahem) multi-page program like (ahem) Quark (pronouced Quack) to knockout an image. Illustrator would be my first bet. Not a piece of software designed for books and catalogs. You don’t need to turn the path into a selection to create a Layer Mask, you can use the path to create a Vector Mask which is much cleaner…unless you wanted to apply filters, adjustments, or hand paint the mask.

edjh: Maybe clarification of the issue at hand is needed?
Enjoy…

edjh wrote:

wrote:

hi all!

i have a photo with a white background and i would like to crop aorund the edges smoothly (important!) leaving a white space of about 5mm around the edges, how can i do this in photoshop? i can only find cropping tools for predefined shapes.

kind regards

Marc

First of all "Crop" is the wrong term. What you want to do is make a good selection around the object and delete or mask out the background. Best way, though not easy, is with the Pen. Another possibility is the Extract filter. There are other ways.

Here’s a tutorial (there are many on the web). You don’t need to make it an actual Clipping Path unless you are putting it into another program like Quark. You can turn the path into a selection and make a mask with that. You can also stroke the path or the selection to get your white outline.

http://www.sketchpad.net/paths3.htm

—
Comic book sketches and artwork:
http://www.sover.net/~hannigan/edjh.html
Comics art for sale:
http://www.sover.net/~hannigan/batsale.html

CS2 Shaman wrote:

I suppose that "Crop" would be the wrong term if knocking out everything, but a specific subject matter. However the way that I have understood the dilemma is that a "Crop" is needed.

Cropping is a different thing entirely. If you want to make the image area smaller a crop might be in order, however that has nothing to do with taking an image out of a background.

Besides what in the

world would compel you to utilize a (ahem) multi-page program like (ahem) Quark (pronouced Quack) to knockout an image.

You misunderstand. The tutorial I linked called for making a Clipping Path out of the Path. My point is that you don’t need to make it a Clipping Path unless you are putting it into Quark or something like that. A regular old Path will do. Make it into a selection to delete or mask.

Illustrator would

be my first bet. Not a piece of software designed for books and catalogs. You don’t need to turn the path into a selection to create a Layer Mask

Yes, you do if you are making a Layer Mask.

, you can use the path to create a Vector Mask which is much

cleaner…unless you wanted to apply filters, adjustments, or hand paint the mask.

Vector masks are fine too, if no feathering or such is needed, which often is when isolating an image from the background. Hard edges can be undesirable if compositing the image into a new background for instance. Depends what he is doing with it.

edjh: Maybe clarification of the issue at hand is needed?
Enjoy…

/snip/

—
Comic book sketches and artwork:
http://www.sover.net/~hannigan/edjh.html
Comics art for sale:
http://www.sover.net/~hannigan/batsale.html