I consider myself an amateur as well. when I wanted to delete a background I erased it bit by bit. It is easy in the large areas, then blow up the picture and work on the edges very carefully. It took a few hours.
There may be a better way, that’s just what I did.
Mike,
As usual in Elements there are many ways to do this. Because of the complexity of this selection (whiskers, wisps of hair where the background shows through, etc) I like the one explained here best:
<
http://www.arraich.com/elements/pse_mmask1.htm>
Not only will you get what you are looking for but you will learn a lot about layers (a knowledge of which is essential to being happy with Elements) and be able to save the mask for future improvement. I have this tutorial saved on my PC so I can go back to it whenever needed.
As you’ve probably already read be sure to preserve your original by working on a duplicate. I open an original (in my case jpg) and then immediately "save as" a tif. That way I won’t accidentally answer yes to "Save changes?" and overwrite the jpg. I save my work on the tif as psd to preserve the layers in case I want to come back and change something.
Take some time to become familiar with the various options of the selection tools; New, Add, Subtract, Intersect and all of those in the Select drop down list. Had I done that sooner I would have saved hours of frustration.
Finally, check out the other tutorials on Jay’s site. They have helped me a lot.
And, of course, come back here. There are no amateur, stupid, dumb questions except for the ones not asked.
Bob
Hey Bob….
I have to agree with looking at Jay’s Tutorials.. they are very helpful… the only thing I find with them however.. is this being an "ELEMENTS" forum it sometimes looks odd to a new user following a tutorial with diagrams showing pallets in PS7 or CS….this is something I struggle with often…. I wonder is there a tutorial out there somewhere for Simulating Alpha Channels that uses ELEMENTS…
David
I wonder is there a tutorial out there somewhere for Simulating Alpha Channels that uses ELEMENTS..
You don’t need to simulate alpha channels in PE 2. Saved selections *are* alpha channels. Make your selection and go to Selection>Save Selection, name it and save it. Voila, alpha channel!
Edit for newsreaders: Of course I meant Select>Save Selection
OK Barbara.. I’ve done that.. just didn’t know what I was doing…. but like I have said in other past posts.. I learn by being "CLICK HAPPY" I just always knwo what I am doing.. LOL… ya a lot of ppl tell me that.. 😀
David…
Woops.. meant to say.. DON’T always know what I am doing.. see.. Click Happy… 😀
I’ve done that.. just didn’t know what I was doing.
Yes, but see how much more impressive it sounds to say you’ve been creating alpha channels instead of just saving selections. <g>
LOL.. well thanks Barbara.. but I have never been one to be concerned about imnpressing.. ;).. I am farrrrr too much of a flake for that… 🙂
David,
I agree that some of the tutorials require interpretation but I found this one pretty easy since most of the examples look just like Elements (1 at least).
Barbara,
To quote Jay:
"Please note: Elements 2 allows the saving of selections as alphas. However, since you can’t see or edit them until they are loaded, and then you will only see the marching ants outline, the techniques described here should still prove useful."
"What this tutorial will teach you, is how to make complicated selections without using any of the selection tools, and then, how to save those selection outlines so you can reuse them at any time. I think you will find that the methods shown here are much better than struggling with the lasso tools, or the magic wand."
I simply find it much easier to paint and correct a mask when dealing with very complex selections. Just erase and repaint. Even when I use selection tools, which is most of the time, I create a new layer and use the paint bucket to fill the selection with black so that I have an easily changed selection to work with later.
Of course I might change if I upgraded to PE2.
Bob
Well, each to his own. I agree that if you want a gradient selection you need to start with a mask, but since you can easily add to or subtract from a selection in PE 2 and even change the mask opacity using the selection brush, I have to say I’m still not clear on the point.
PE 1 lacks the selection brush–that alone is worth the price of admission for PE 2 IMHO.
EDIT Should clarify that–you can’t change an adjustment layer mask with the selection brush–you do that by option/alt clicking the layer mask thumbnail and painting on the mask with the regular brush tool.
To all who answered – thanks lots, I really appreciate it. Now to give it a try… Mike
Mike,
Selecting something complex can be difficult to begin with but stick with it …. you do find it easier as time goes by.
Have you considered blurring the background? To go that:
Select the lasso and set the feather (you will have to play around to see what looks best). Just go round the dog roughly… you don’t have to be neat when using feather. Then do Filter>Blur>Gaussian Blur and play around with the slider.
Wendy
Hi again,
Well, I followed the "Simulated Alpha Channels" tutorial by Jay Arraich that was suggested above. I used the brush tool, at 100% opacity, and brushed out all but the pup. So far, so good. But this is where I get lost. I can follow the rest of Jay’s tutorial, of course, but that is not what I want to achieve. Here it is – now that I have the dog’s image, I want to either blur the original background sufficiently or perhaps move the dog onto another image entirely (another photo). I know this is probably basic stuff, but I haven’t been able to get it done. Any suggestions?
One other question – I have been looking for a good book on Elements, and would like to know if you all have any ideas. Many are good at showing specific tasks, and that’s good, but most gloss over the kinds of things I need to know and, as a new user, simply don’t. Things specifically like the options of a particular tool, what is the "radius" or "feather". It’s bad enough to not know the difference between the uses of some tools, but more so the details within any given tool. Any books that do this?
Okay, I remember one last question too – is there any way to lock the layers dialog box into the open position rather than have it collapse every time?
Thanks again for your earlier help, finding these resources that you all mentioned is great, I appreciate it.
Mike
Mike,
Just drag the layers dialog box into your desktop. As long as the layers palette’s tab isn’t in the palette well, it will stay open. No need to close it at the end of the session either. PSE will remember. I think the reason that no one is supplying a specific radius and feather setting is that every image is different, and the eye of the beholder factor. For what you are doing, I think maybe around .5 to 1.5 should be in the neighborhood for feather. Gaussian well that depends on your taste. You should be able to see the effect as you are applying the blur. Trust your eyes. I haven’t read Jay’s simulated Alpha channels so I can’t give any input on that other to say in full PS they are used to save selections. I imagine in PSE you would just magic wand the white or black to instantly get a selection. By the way, the term radius is to my understanding how far you want the image program to search to make a change so the smaller the radius the stronger the change. Feather is diffusion. Example: Shine a flashlight and look at how the light dissipates as you get further from the light source. The reason feathering is so important is that it gives illusion of unity with the background instead of looking like a cutout. Okay, on to your project. I know everyone is saying cut out the dog and blur the background but that really only works with a small amount of blur because you start to get halo and smear at high background blurring. I found a good tutorial on this subject in my Wow Photoshop 7 book. Select your dog, go to Layer Menu and select Layer via Copy. Your dog should now be on it’s own layer over the background. Reselect the dog but this time go to Selection Menu and pick Inverse. Click on the background layer and go to Layer Menu and pick Layer Via copy. You should now have three layers. (The original background, just the background, and just your dog…make sure just your dog is at the top of the stack). You will not be doing anything to the original background layer but it’s eye need to stay on. This layer’s purpose is to fill in the halo that occurs with the blur which will be applied to just the background. Click on the just the background layer. Apply a pretty good amount of Gaussian Blur…whatever looks good. You should now have your dog sharp and the background blurred. Select your dog. Shortcut…hold ctrl key and click on the dogs layer which will load your dog. Go to Selection Menu pick Feather…may be in Modify menu which is in the selection menu. Put in the pixels maybe 1. This will bring some unity to the composition. For added unity, add some noise. To do this, click on the just the background layer then go to the Layer Menu and pick New Layer. In the dialog box, go to Mode and select Overlay the check the box that says 50% gray. You’ll get a gray see thru layer over the just background. Run the Add Noise filter to this layer. The filter has a preview so you’ll be able to see the effect it’s having on your image. Click Monochromatic at the bottom if you don’t want color noise. I hope this helps and I didn’t lose by naming layer 2 just the background and layer 3 just the dog.
Terri
Thank you Terri, quite a WOW answer, I reall appreciate your feedback.
Mike
M,
Glad to hear that. I was afraid I’d lose you in all that dialog.
Terri
M,
I just thought of one more tip that may be useful to you since you got what I was telling you in the WOW post. Before you feather the just my dog layer, it might be helpful to duplicate the just my dog layer. Temporarily turn off the eye on the top just my dog layer so you can see the next step. Change the layer mode of the just my dog lower layer to Multiply and drop the opacity of this layer down to 60% or so. (You can see the layer but only faintly.) Turn back on the top just my dog layer and feather this layer. This should eliminate any artifacts. (The white spotty trash that can show up around hair and fur when an image has been moved off a background.)
I added this because I just remembered you had stated you had painstakingly selected the whiskers. The duplicated layer of the dog in Multiply should help but the feathering may still eliminate the whiskers.
Terri
