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Posted on 05/05/26 4:31:29 PM |
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Nick Curtain
Model Master Posts: 1802 Reply  |
Cutting out objects
Steve posted a photo of Joe on his motorbike against a green background for this weeks challenge. On the Contextual Task Bar, I tried both 'select subject and 'remove background', neither with any real success because the spokes on the bike were not selected. Select and mask was pretty useless also and I've never found the refine hair brush any good either, in fact useless too. I then tried colour range and this produced a far better result, although there was still some green around the spokes, particularly on the rear wheel. I would mention that my PS version is 2024 because my subscription updates cannot be applied due to system limitations. I believe I've mentioned this before. Questions Has the subject selection improved with later versions of PS? What method do others use? I'm talking to a friend who builds PCs and the spec will be updated significantly in due course, so I will be able to enjoy the full package. Any help appreciated Nick |
Posted on 05/05/26 8:09:20 PM |
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dwindt
Realism Realiser Posts: 1049 Reply |
Re: Cutting out objects
I also used colour range. Then I masked the image, contracted the mask by 1, inverted the mask and cut. I refined the rear spokes by hand with eraser and smudge tool. Surprisingly, the front spokes were preserved nicely. You can tell the difference between the 2 challenge images. I never went through this process for the first image as I was able to disguise some of the remaining green with dust. With the wheelie image, there was no way to hide the green so I had to try something to reduce it. Luck the image resolution was big enough to allow for the contracting of the mask and still leave the spokes visible. _________________ The grass is greener on the other side of the fence because there is more $hit there. |
Posted on 05/05/26 9:35:15 PM |
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DavidMac
Director of Photoshop Posts: 6198 Reply  |
Re: Cutting out objects
Steve gave us a textbook standard green screen. That should be easy! But, like you, I found Select Subject and Remove Background to be lacking. (Incidentally the latter is just the former converted to a mask so it's not going to be any different.) Like you I then used Colour Range which did a much better job job but still left some fringing. I then went into Refine Mask and did just the teeniest reduction and tightening but, most importantly, I turned on Decontaminate Colours and that got rid of the green fringe. Somehow it really shouldn't be that difficult. Steve delivered an object for extraction in what should be absolutely the best and easiest way possible but somehow my Photoshop (and clearly yours) does not seem to agree. There is another way entirely to post JPG images for cut out and extraction. It may seem silly but it works! Like all tutorials it looks tricky at first glance but it's really not. If you want to post JPG's for cutout extraction it is entirely possible to include clipping paths in a jpg. However, as Micheal Sinclair pointed out, so succinctly, at the end of the above linked tutorial, there is another even simpler way - post a PNG!  _________________ The subtlety and conviction of any Photoshop effect is invariably inversely proportional to the number of knobs on it ....... |
Posted on 06/05/26 1:41:03 PM |
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Nick Curtain
Model Master Posts: 1802 Reply |
Re: Cutting out objects
Dennis and David Thanks you so much for your wonderful responses. Have to say that I was quite astonished to learn that you had both encountered exactly the same issues as me, which gives me some sort of comfort insofar that my 2024 version has not been superceded that much. Like you David, I would have thought that the 'green screen' approach would have worked a treat and I was staggered to see the artifacts appearing, particularly on the rear wheel. I would never have thought there would be so much manual tidying up to do. Of course, there is the option of desaturation to eliminate the green, particularly with silver spokes, but that won't always be the case. I omitted to mention that I did experiment with the Magic Wand set at tolerance 32 and this did a pretty good job and possibly slightly better than colour range, but not perfect by any means. I've just created my own file (9x6 Inches at 300 PPI) and drawn various shapes using the Pen Tool. I went back and forth creating very acute angles, then converting to selection, (with no feather) and filling with black. Below that I placed a solid colour adj layer filled with Steves green and then merged visible above a white background. Both the Wand and Colour Range did an amazing job, apart from the very end of the angles however, Select Subject wasn't so successful. So I'm thinking that resolution has a big part to play here, as Dennis has alluded to. Sometime the old ways can still prove very effective. Thanks again guys. Nick |
Posted on 08/05/26 08:24:17 AM |
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Steve Caplin
Administrator Posts: 7169 Reply  |
Re: Cutting out objects
I found the best way to do the cutout (sorry, hadn't tried it before posting, thought it would be easy) was to use the Background Eraser tool set to a tolerance of 64. But this does leave some green fringing on the spokes… paint over them set to Color mode? |