Is there a "green screen" option in Elements?

P
Posted By
Prov
Sep 4, 2003
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498
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I was wondering about the "green screen" option, if there is one or not that is. (elements 2.0, photoshop 7, windows XP…primarilly use 2.0)
I want to be able to take a portrait photo with my Canon 1D using a "green screen" background, then duplicate that imagage in Elements to a transparent background and finally take my image into a pre selected background.
-Example…I have a nice field of flowers background, and I want to put a picture of my daughter in front of it. I do not want to feather the image in, because the foreground won’t be as clean as I want. The end result I’m looking for is a perfectly clean image, 100% opacity, moved into another photo. Does this make sense?
(PS- I already know how to move photos into one another…it’s the whole clean image that I’m looking for, hence the "green screen" thought.)
Thanks for any and all help!!!
-Dan
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PD
Peter Duniho
Sep 4, 2003
"Prov" wrote in message
I want to be able to take a portrait photo with my Canon 1D using a "green screen" background, then duplicate that imagage in Elements to a transparent background and finally take my image into a pre selected background.
-Example…I have a nice field of flowers background, and I want to put a picture of my daughter in front of it.

There may be something built-in, I’m not sure (new to the program). But at the very least, you ought to be able to use the magic wand tool to select and cut the green area from the layer containing the picture of your daughter. Then you can just place that layer above the flowers background.

You might have to fiddle with the "Tolerance" setting on the magic wand a bit to ensure enough green is taken out. Also, if you wind up matching some green on your daughter, you’ll want to use the "remove from selection" option for adjusting the selection so that the flowers aren’t showing through her t-shirt (for example).

The more uniform the green background (which could be any color, actually), the easier it will be to select it and only it.

Pete
P
Prov
Sep 4, 2003
Pete,
Thanks for the tip. I have absolutely no experience with the magic wand tool! I really have never tried it, nor do I completely understand it’s purpose. If you don’t mind, maybe you could explain it…if not, I’ll break out my books when I get home from work tonight and see if I can learn about it then.
Thanks again.
-Dan
RC
Richard Coencas
Sep 4, 2003
Prov,

The magic wand selects all colors within a certain tolerance range with a single click. It can be set to select only contiguous pixels or non-contiguous by clicking the box on the options bar. To select multiple areas hold down shift to add to your selection. Tolerance sets the color range. A lower tolerance a more narrow range.
Rich
PD
Peter Duniho
Sep 4, 2003
"Prov" wrote in message
Thanks for the tip. I have absolutely no experience with the magic wand tool! I really have never tried it, nor do I completely understand it’s purpose. If you don’t mind, maybe you could explain it

Well, my knowledge of it is pretty basic. Essentially, it selects all the pixels in the image that match the color of the pixel you click on. If you set the "Tolerance" in the options to 0, then it will select only exact matches (pixels of exactly the same color). The larger the "Tolerance", up to 255, the more different from the original color a pixel can be and be included in the selection. With the "Tolerance" at 255, it will pretty much select everything in your picture.

For your green screen task, a "Tolerance" of around 16-24 is probably appropriate, but try lower if too many parts of the image are getting select that you don’t want cut out. Just as you can remove parts of the selection, if areas of your daughter are getting selected, you can also add areas to the selection, if for some reason not all of the "green screen" area gets selected.

That’s pretty much all I know. 🙂

Pete
EM
Elena Murphy
Sep 4, 2003
Yeah there really isn’t anything else built into it. There are several third-party plugins that offer a variety of levels of accuracy (and prices). One example is Ultimatte but I think that’s an expensive one. If you don’t want that stuff, the magic wand tool is definitely a good alternative.
P
Prov
Sep 4, 2003
Thanks a lot everyone. I’ve secretly loaded Elements on the work computer (shhhh) and I’m anxious to give it a try. Your tips are very much appreciated!
-Dan
WB
W Bobrowski
Sep 13, 2003
You can check out this $200US program which automatically removes ‘green screen’: < http://www.photron.com/primatte/products/photography_design/ primatte_photo_design_main.html>

Alternatively, you can easily mask it out yourself, either by upgrading to Photoshop v7 (Filter | Extract), or buying the Mask Pro plugin from Extensis: <http://www.extensis.com>

Best regards,
Walt
LK
Leen Koper
Sep 13, 2003
Prov,

Please don’t use a green, blue or any other coloured screen. Every coloured surface will often cause a colour cast on your subject that will be extremely difficult to remove.
I sometimes do some catalogue shots and I always use an almost white background.

BTW, does anyone understand why art directors always require large hi-res images although they know these images will never be printed any larger than about 2 inch size in a catalogue?
I suppose their fee is a (rather high) percentage of my bill. 😉

Leen
B
Bernie
Sep 18, 2003
The best way I have found using elements 2.0. (PS 7 has more options).

I use the background eraser tool. ( it is in the pop out menu of eraser) I use dis contiguous which will pick up all that is the same color as the hot-spot, and tolerance at 50%

Use a very large brush size. ( The + in the middle of brush is the hot-spot, that is the sample color, anything inside the brush that is the same color will be removed)

As you paint with this brush, green will become transparent. When done use magic wand tool and click on the transparent area.(grey checked area) this selects the background.
Then go to select inverse. (this switch’s the background selection to the person selection) Now go to select modify contract and pick 2 (pixels)this will remove the halo around pix. While it is still selected go back to move tool and drop on your background pix, or what I tend to do is drop on a NEW blank transparent background so I can save it, as a PSD, in case I need it later.
Once you get your cut out pix on your new background, you can use transform to resize it.

Ralph
<http://www.darkstar.us>
TS
tom schauer
Sep 19, 2003
There is a show on tech tv called dvgarage??. Yesterday, they showed how to use a bluescreen and Photoshop to remove the background. They also have this on their website, with step by step instructions in a pdf document. They also have a video clip from the show, and the sample image they used to remove the background. All can be downloaded (except I was not able to save the pdf to my computer. Access to the part with the detailed instructions requires a free membership–username and password.

The instructions are for Photoshop. I tried to replicate what they did using Photoshop Elements and was able to do part of it, but not all the same tools were available. I primarly used the color adjustment and brightness/contrast tools from the "enhance" menu to create a mask.

If anyone can figure out how to do the same in Elements, I would like to know. I will see if I can find the links to the tech tv site and post them,

Tom Schauer
TS
tom schauer
Sep 19, 2003
Here is the link to the bluescreen tip referenced in my last post:

< http://www.techtv.com/callforhelp/answerstips/story/0,24330, 3525926,00.html>

Here is the link to step by step instructions (link may not be accesible without free membership)–includes pdf, movie clip (not streaming) and sample image). There are several tips on the page. The first is the bluescreen. They call it "Keying in Photoshop"

<http://www.dvgarage.com/garage/break/techtv/techtv.php>

Here is the direct link to the pdf itself (again, may not be accessible without free membership)

<http://216.127.92.206/media/techtv/cfh_key.pdf>
TS
tom schauer
Sep 19, 2003
The tip page referenced above also has links to commercial products with sample images available
B
Bernie
Sep 19, 2003
It won’t work in PE because you can’t get the channel mixer which is key to creating the mask. I tried that before using PS6, and it is a good mask, the problem is the last step to remove the halo.
He made a copy of the green channel and pasted into the blue channel to try to eliminate the halo. That only works if the two channels are very similar, ( the person needs to NOT have green or blue on them).
It will greatly change the colors in your person pix.
So you really need at the end to hand remove the halo, which is time consuming unless you use a plug-in that can tweak the mask settings.
Cinematte works well,(not in PE) Maskpro by extensis (not in PE) but they take time to get your mask and require photoshop to use them.
I use elements because I can quickly teach someone how to do my old west and green screen photos on location .If it is lit correctly, you can remove background/halo and have it on your background in less than a minute, which is about as long as I can give per photo.

Ralph
<http://www.darkstar.us>

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