Hi All. This is my first post here and I’m hoping someone will be able to help. I’m wanting to make the background of my photo black. I need step by step help, as this is all new to me. I would appreciate any help anyone is willing to provide. I’ve been fiddling around with layers etc, but at the moment I’m really frustrated. HELP. Kind regards, Mishell
Hi, Basically Yes. I have taken a picture of My dh holding onto our baby’s foot. It was taken outside and I’d really love to highlight it by making the background black. Hope this explains it a bit better. Ragards
There are any number of ways you can approach the task in Elements, but I’ll give you a quick description of one way you can try, to get started.
First, make sure that you are working on a COPY of your image, so that the original won’t be damaged, in case something goes wrong.
You’ll need to put a selection around the part of the image which you wish to keep. One way of doing this is to use the Lasso tool. (Depending on the contrast between your subject and the background, you might have luck using either the magnetic lasso, or the magic wand)
Once you have a selection around the "good" part of the image, I suggest you place that part on a layer of its own…. click Layer > New > Layer via copy. While holding the CTRL key, click the new layer’s icon in the layers palette to load the selection of the copied shape. Then, click Select > Inverse to select everything that is NOT your image.
Then, click Edit > Fill. From the Fill dialog, in the Contents section, choose Black.
These steps are most likely going to only give you a rough idea of how to go about the task. The quality of the result will depend on how well you select the image portion. Also, you may wish to feather your selection to soften the edges a bit. The selection is really everything in a project like this.
After you do it once, you will probably get better results each time you try it – don’t expect perfection right away.
Oh, Mr Byron Gale I could eat you!!!!!!!! Thank you so much. I just followed your instructions and hey presto it worked! THANK YOU THANK YOU THANK YOU. I have been trying on and off for weeks and weeks to work this out. I’ve looked at the forums on camera sites, at all the posts and none has been able to easily explain this to me. I used the magnetic lasso – worked great, I’m so impressed! You should have been in my house anyone would have thought I’d won a million dollars. I’m so excited and happy. Thank you for taking the time to reply to my post and make me one happy little scrapbooker. Thanks again, Mishell
This forum is a great source of information, don’t hestitate to post when you have another question! The people here are friendly and knowledgable. You are a delight…such enthusiasm and gratefulness!!
Hi Nancy, I am just so excited. Such a little thing I know, but when you have been trying to work something out for a while it’s great when you finally do. Thanks for your compliment – made me feel real good. And as for posting again, you betcha. Kind regards, Mishell
Yes, those little things can drive you crazy. So don’t be frustrated at home when help is as close as this forum, everyone started at the beginning sometime.
When you cut something out and put it on another background it does look more natural if you blur the edges a bit either with feather, as already suggested, or you can use the blur tool. I like using the blur tool and find it gives me a bit more control.
I am delighted that my suggestions were helpful for you!!
If you’re just beginning to learn Elements, then you can look forward to wonderful things. I am almost to reach my one-year anniversary of using PSE, and I still seem to learn something, or improve my skill, every day.
This forum’s regulars are some of the most gracious folks you could hope to meet. They are generous with their knowledge and time, and are just plain nice. Some even have a sense of humor! 😉
Hi All, Thanks Wendy for that added info, I’ll try that. Byron, dh is dear husband, (not the other dh that you may be thinking LOL). He was holding her heel in between his thumb and index finger. Bit hard to explain, maybe there is somewhere I could post it, so you could have a look, I dunno! Thanks again,
A lot of us on this forum have "rented" webspace at pbase.com. Some have created large photo gallerys and some like myself, just use it as a place to post an occassional image. It is well run and they supply all the tools from uploading to creating the galleries. I think they charged something like $20 for a year.
Thanks Nancy, Is that 20.00 US? Also just a question on the blur thing, do you do that after you have selected or before? also ther feathering bit? As you can see I"m very new at this! Thanks, Mishell
When I want to select something for the purpose of cutting it out and pasting on a new background, I can do one of these; * choose my selection tool (such as the lasso) and in the box above the workarea where it says "feather", set an amount, such as 1 px or 2 px and then make the selection * have the feather value for the tool set to "0 px", make my selection, but before cutting it out, on the menu bar go to Select>Feather and set an amount for feather radius * make my selection with no feather, paste it on its own layer, see how it looks against my new background. If it doesn’t look good, I would Ctrl/click on that selected out layer in the Layers Palette to put the marching ants around it again, go to Select>Feather to set a amount, then Select>Inverse>Delete. The selection needs to be alone on its own layer for this. * make my selection with no feathering, paste to its own layer, ctrl/click layer in Palette to select if it is not still selected and then go to Select>Modify>Contract. Type in 1 or 2 pixels, go to Select>Feather (1 to 3 px), Select>Inverse>Delete. * paste the selection to its own layer, new background below it in the Layers Palette, get the blur tool, choose a brush the width you want the blurred area to be and run it around the edges of the selection (or use a larger brush and just let the edge of the brush overlap the selection)
If you just wanted to change something in part of an image, you could select it, leave it right where it is, choose an adjustment layer such as Levels for your edit, make your changes. This will produce another layer above it with a mask to protect from change all areas NOT selected. The change you made will only affect the selected area which is still in the original layer. Original pixels have not been damaged by the adjustment however, as the adjustment layer can be deleted or opened up again to change your edit (such as deciding to make the selected area a deeper blue than the medium blue you had already choosen).
Oh, another handy use for the Select>Modify>Contract thang is if after you have made your selection, placed it on its own layer above a new background and you see a little halo of color around the selection which doesn’t belong, suck in the selection line 1 or 2 pixels, select>inverse>delete.
or for getting rid of a halo, which is actually a bit of the color of the pixels next to the selection in original… with selection on its own layer, selection line active, get the clone tool, smallish brush, mediumish opacity, softish edge 🙂 and sample with the clone tool near to the edge and then run the brush around edges where unwanted color is.
If you’d like to post it you can send it to me and I’ll put it up on my pbase gallery. Click on my name and you will find my email address. Try to keep it under 1mb.
Do you know how to reduce the size of an image for email and posting in a gallery? That could be your next lesson.
HI Mark and Nancy, Well I’ve just read your posts and considering I’ve had a couple of glasses of wine, I think I’ll read it again tomorrow and try the suggestions. Thanks Mark for the offer, I’ll give it a go if you guys want to have a look at the photo. I’m an avid scrapbooker and that’s what I’m using elements for. Do you know what scrapbooking is? Do you care. LOl. I’m not going to write anymore in case I embarass Myself. Until tomorrow, Shell
Scrapbooking is quite the rage here in the United States. It is the process of putting pictures, newspaper clips, special invitations and other announcements on fancy papers with special designs and putting cute little captions and other special touches to the pages to make them particularly visually appealing. There are some places where scrapbooking may even seem like a cult :). There are stores that are devoted solely to this hobby. Some of them even have work areas where you can spread your book out and just purchase the items that you need at the moment. And then everyone gets ideas from everyone else, and the store comes out being the big winner :).
I had never heard of that and I do live in the U.S. Really sounds like a lot of fun. Also, sounds like it’s a passion of Mishell’s. Seems like digital artwork would be a great addition to scrapbooking.
Speaking of cults, have you ever heard of Photoshop/Elements Users cults? Do you think there is such a thing? 🙂
Speaking of cults, have you ever heard of Photoshop/Elements Users cults?
Do you think there is such a thing? 🙂
If there is, this must be it.
The wife of a friend is REALLY into the scrapbooking "thing". At one point, she was trying to make a business out of it… kind of a MLM organization, I think, named Creative Memories, or something similar. In this area, the scrapbooking frenzy peaked a couple of years ago, and at that time she was doing "parties" to sell the stuff almost every night.
I saw some of the things they put together and found them quite impressive.
When I was a kid, many, many ,oh so many years ago, we were encouraged to keep scrapbooks for special events. Seems everyone in my class had a Queen Elizabeth II Coronation Scrapbook. Scrapbooking got forgotten for a long while and now they are back, such is the nature of fashion.
Not so many years ago I was very interested in art and at the insistence of my teacher I kept an artist’s journal. It is a miniature scrap book of ideas with the purpose of improving ones skill . Every creative idea you jot down into this book, most often they consists of sketches, water colours, or photographs with notes scribbled over them. For example when you get a new idea in Elements you make a small print and paste it into the book and scribble notes for reminders. For whatever reason this combination of thoughts and tangible results really rivet the ideas into the mind. In a short while the book takes a life of its own. It is becomes a sort of a tick-trunk of idea. After a while the book starts to looks like a pregnant guppy. But have no fear if you are lucky the book becomes a piece of work on its own. I favoured an artist sketch book about 5" x 8". The only other thins you need is some glue and a pen. Take it every where and let the juices flow. I know one person that fills one her book up I about 2-3 months. For me it is yearly as I try to keep up although with it but have different levels of success.
Hi All, What an interesting read I’ve just had. Yes Scrapbooking is a PASSION of mine, my dh is starting to think of ot as ‘Crapbooking’ because it is almost taking over my life!!!!! The cult comment could be right!!! I t is basically as has been described, by someone here, (I’m too lazy to look back and see by who). You take a photo or two or more and instead of just putting it on a page it is mounted on special cardboard that doesn’t contain nasties that will make your photo go red etc( like those old magnetic albums did) and then you write about what happened in the photo or how you were feeling etc. and embellish the page in any way you choose. It is abuot preserving memories as well as a craft. It ican be quite complicated. There are heaps of websites available for all to have a look at some work and also mags in newsagency all around. I’m in Australia and it is growing in popularity here, following the American trend. Not sure of the exact link, but will find out – anyway a great site that has lots of pages of scrapbooking to look at is called Two Peas in a Bucket. Let me know if you do have a look and what you think.
Now I’m thinking clearly I will have a look at the other posts and perhaps put this photo ( OF MY LITTLE ONES FOOT) on the link suggested- a little later because I’m kid free at the moment, so time to scrapbook. TTFn Shell
…. and now I understand what it is all about. They make some really good layouts … you can actually do the same thing using elements.
Take a background image, few photographs, some gold clip art and an artistic brush or two … finally frame it with one of Jodi’s frames and there you go with a digital scrapbook.
Hi Wendy I am interested in the scrapbooking craze as well, but have only gotten as far as creating cards. What is gold clip art in elements? thanks, Michelle
Give your photos a professional finish with sharpening in Photoshop. Learn to enhance details, create contrast, and prepare your images for print, web, and social media.
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