Erasing the Background

PF
Posted By
Paul Fenton
Dec 23, 2004
Views
179
Replies
3
Status
Closed
After working with the background eraser tool, I find that there are still background colors adjacent to the image I’m trying to extract. So I expand the picture and, with a small brush, erase pixels almost one-by-one. Very tedious and the results are mixed.

When using the BG erase tool, I adjust the brush size and tolerance to get the best result, but still have to clean it up as I explained. I usually use a hard edge brush instead of the blurred edge.

Am I using these tools correctly and if not, what’s a better technique?

Paul Fenton
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background erase

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postman delivers
Dec 26, 2004
"Paul Fenton" wrote in message
After working with the background eraser tool, I find that there are still background colors adjacent to the image I’m trying to extract. So I expand the picture and, with a small brush, erase pixels almost one-by-one. Very tedious and the results are mixed.

When using the BG erase tool, I adjust the brush size and tolerance to get the best result, but still have to clean it up as I explained. I usually use a hard edge brush instead of the blurred edge.
Am I using these tools correctly and if not, what’s a better technique?

Paul Fenton

Paul,

I Have used the same technique I was shown at the Las Vegas Comdex a number of years back inside the Adobe Booth. It has worked for me in Photoshop version 6, & 7, including Elements 2 & 3. What I have always done is start with the background eraser and then immediately switch from Background eraser to the eraser tool. For what ever reason it acts like the Background eraser, but does not leave the bits and pieces that the background eraser does..

Try it on a single layer, and several layers to be certain this switch of tools performs the same in your computer as it has in mine.

JR the postman
PF
Paul Fenton
Jan 4, 2005
Thank you JR. I’ll give it a try

Paul Fenton

On Sun, 26 Dec 2004 10:33:02 -0800, "postman delivers" wrote:

"Paul Fenton" wrote in message
After working with the background eraser tool, I find that there are still background colors adjacent to the image I’m trying to extract. So I expand the picture and, with a small brush, erase pixels almost one-by-one. Very tedious and the results are mixed.

When using the BG erase tool, I adjust the brush size and tolerance to get the best result, but still have to clean it up as I explained. I usually use a hard edge brush instead of the blurred edge.
Am I using these tools correctly and if not, what’s a better technique?

Paul Fenton

Paul,

I Have used the same technique I was shown at the Las Vegas Comdex a number of years back inside the Adobe Booth. It has worked for me in Photoshop version 6, & 7, including Elements 2 & 3. What I have always done is start with the background eraser and then immediately switch from Background eraser to the eraser tool. For what ever reason it acts like the Background eraser, but does not leave the bits and pieces that the background eraser does..

Try it on a single layer, and several layers to be certain this switch of tools performs the same in your computer as it has in mine.
JR the postman
S
Scotius
Jan 22, 2005
On Thu, 23 Dec 2004 15:02:20 -0800, Paul Fenton
wrote:

After working with the background eraser tool, I find that there are still background colors adjacent to the image I’m trying to extract. So I expand the picture and, with a small brush, erase pixels almost one-by-one. Very tedious and the results are mixed.

When using the BG erase tool, I adjust the brush size and tolerance to get the best result, but still have to clean it up as I explained. I usually use a hard edge brush instead of the blurred edge.

I don’t know whether you’re using a PC or a Mac, but either way you can do this; use the magic wand tool, and hold down the control key (on pc) to select more than one area at a time. Then you can delete a bunch of areas together that you don’t want.

Am I using these tools correctly and if not, what’s a better technique?

Paul Fenton

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