Removing ALL background from a photo

[jburnell]

I have a photo of my Maine Coon kitty on the back of a chair, w/other things in the room in the background, too. I have gotten most of the background out except for around Maxie's body. I couldn't use the Magic Extractor because some of the colors are the same as Maxie is - and it sure didn't look very good when I tried that; and he has quite a bit of fur and it was taking away too much of that long fur... :(

Can someone point me to where I need to go to learn more on how to get the complete background out and have just Maxie there?

Was there something in the Layers online tutorial? If so, just let me know which lesson so I can review it, if you would, please? It can't be the tut on the white dog, 'cause Maxie is brown/black with white and the background has some of the same colors in it.

Thank so much y'all!
Jules

[Juergen D]

Jules,
If there is hair and fur to be selected, things tend to get a bit tricky. It is really hard to give advice without seeing the image.
Please post it for us here and I'm sure there will be some ideas:
http://www.pixentral.com

Juergen

[GaryK]

Jules

One thing to try for the fur is to make duplicate of the image you have and try a threshold adjustment layer. Move the slider back and forth until just the fur is black and then do a ctrl click to select and go back to the photo layer and delete.

Hair/fur is hard to select and this doesn't work all the time, and from your description (same colour issue) it probably won't now, but heck it's worth a try.

Hope this helps:)

[jburnell]

Gary and Juergen, here is a link to the photo of Maxie that I have been messing around with...

http://www.pixentral.com/show.php?picture=1Wy8cSXQBu6gv9FDJcfdVq6hhy5bjL

I suppose if worse comes to worse I can do it the "old fashioned" way and do pixel by pixel...so not what I want to have to do! :p

And Gary, I am really new at this, so not sure how to try a threshold adjustment layer.:confused: ...sorry!

Thanks guys!
Jules

[mom to 4]

Jules:

I use the magic lasso tool. That seems to work pretty darn well. I can tend to get away from you a bit, but to remove the extra stops you just hit the backspace and it will take it away.

Now, there is a way to Select>Modify>.......and I am not sure which one ...expand or contract.......a couple of pixels and then Select>feather> and the same amount of pixels, that works for smoothing out the fur.

If you are a subscriber there is a tutorial about doing the Select>Modify thing. They use a guys hair to demonstrate...I will have to double check on that.

Anyway, try the magic lasso and see how you do. Then I would go in and CTRL+ to make the image about 200% and go in with a smaller eraser to clean it up.

I am sure someone else with much more knowlege than I have will be along and may have a better way. That's the great thing about this forum. Lots and lots of knowlegeable people hang out here!

[GaryK]

Jules

Nevermind.. it won't work:D I just gave it a quick whirl ..not even close.:rolleyes:

Anyway... in your layers pallet , at the top , there is a black/white circle. If you click on that, you get a bunch of adjustment layers showing up. Scroll down to threshold and you will get a popup .. drag the slider around.

Works pretty well with a bit more light/dark contrast, but not in this case.

Looks like the old fashoin way.. some of the remaining areas look like they could be selected with the magic wand. I have a feeling lots of zooming and selecting are in order.

Sorry

[mom to 4]

I've never had great luck with the wand, but sometimes I may just be too impatient....:D

[Juergen D]

Jules,
Select Maxie fairly roughly. Then go around with a really soft, low opacity eraser and try to work out the details... As I said, it is tricky business to get fur decently selected. It's a lot of trial and error. This is what I have come up with, so far (not really the ultimate solution):
http://www.pixentral.com/show.php?picture=1idZKsbqFxdWeB2UOY9BUCQpc1xObP

Juergen

[Wendy]

Jules ...

One tip for fur and hair is to make the best selection you can and then just copy it to its own layer ... next get the smudge tool and use it to push out whispy bits of fur or hair.

It works quite well :)

Wendy

[TonyW]

That's a real tough one and reminded me of a couple of years ago when someone I know wanted me to take a picture of their cat to use on a card. I gave up trying to extract from the background and finished up covering its favorite spot with a contrasting colour sheet. Amazingly the cat cooperated and lay down on the sheet. Took the picture and that made the extraction so much easier.

Tony

[Wendy]

Hi Tony ...

Hey what a good tip !! .. I never thought of trying that :)

Wendy

[Juergen D]

OK, I tried a little of Wendy's suggestion, the Smudge Tool. Also, I applied a drop shadow, which seems to help. A little extra contrast makes him look better yet:
http://www.pixentral.com/show.php?picture=1vnIv468nFnpKURTSOmVrsyIG8zA

Juergen

[NRiceDesigns]

Jules, Welcome to the forum.

[jburnell]

Wow, guys! Lots of great info here! I will try your suggestions to see what gives me the best effect...gonna be trial and error, I can tell. :)

Juergen, the links you put for me would not open, would you send them to my email addy, please? taxlady1@iowaone.net I would love to see what you came up with and I will try your suggestions, too!

Thanks y'all...you have been so very helpful here. When I get Maxie done, I will have to post him for ya to see. He's going to go on a webpage!

Thanks again,
Jules

[jburnell]

Oh! and Colleen, if you could find out what tutorial that is and let me know, that would be great!

I took the Layers tut, but need to go over each lesson again...and again... :o

Thanks!
Jules

[Wendy]

Hi Jules ...

There is a problem accessing Pixentral at the moment ... but hopefully it will be working again soon :)

Wendy

[jburnell]

Okay, thanks, Wendy!

[jburnell]

Hey, it's working now!

Juergens, I see what you did - looks great...except for Maxie's Maine Coon lynx tips (the hair growing out from the very tips of his ears - about 3/4" long). To me he looks a bit bald on the ears... :D Sorry, I am used to seeing the hair from the tips of his ears...I really got a chuckle out of this. No more teasing you about his ears - promise.

You did a great job, now if I can only do this! What a cute bubby I have! I will post him when I figure it out. THANK YOU!

Hope you take my teasing in stride and don't take offense - you probably have no idea what a Maine Coon kitty is...

Thanks so much again,

Jules

[jburnell]

Juergens, I forgot to say that his eyes look awesome! The camera kinda gave them a real glow and you fixed them almost perfectly!

:) Jules

[Shari]

Juergens - you did a fantastic job. I am wondering about the eyes - how did you fix them. The only way I could fix my little mini Dachshund's eyes was to do a transplant and to tell you the truth I felt very strange taking her eye from one photo and putting it in another. Sometimes the flash hit them like that and red eye for humans does not work - what did you do please??? Jules welcome to the forum. You are going to love all the help - both from asking and reading.
Shari

[Bayla]

Shari,

This may be of use to you:

http://www.myjanee.com/tuts/peteyes/peteyes.htm

or this thread from ages ago (the image links no longer work but there's some useful info about getting rid of demonic pet eyes)

http://www.photoshopelementsuser.com/forum/showthread.php?t=3107&highlight=eyes

Bayla

[Juergen D]

Jules and Shari,
Thank you both. Sorry about those ears. I've seen them before, did not pay
attention last night.
Shari, the eyes where quite easy to do. I only selected the pupils and placed them on a new layer and filled them with black, 85% I think.

Juergen

[jburnell]

Thanks for the welcome to the group from everybody!

And Juergens, thanks for telling how you did his eyes; that is awesome!

What I am doing is designing a webpage and he willl be hanging over one of the CSS columns in the header section as a sort of logo - don't have it all planned out yet, but know that Maxie will be "draped" there. This is my first attempt in a long time, as I have been out of page design for so long and CSS is a totally new experience for me. PSE sure does make this process a lot easier than it was in the "old" days of going pixel by pixel for almost the whole image. I am a happy woman!

I so appreciate your kind help everyone!

Jules

[Shari]

Thanks Juergen and Bayla. Bayla I actually have that tutorial in my bookmarks. I remember I got it when I first started elements and it looked way too difficult for me to understand. Now I think it will make more sense. Thanks for reminding me.
Shari

[Daviskw]

Here is another attempt... no better than the rest but thought I'd post it anyway. I did not spend a great deal of time but I do think it can be done…Never really good but better anyway.

I tried to drastically increase contrast with levels and layer modes to get the best separation between the cat and background. Then I filled the cat with white almost to the edge then black around the cat. I overlaid the original layer and used it to judge where to smudge white hair…or where to paint white or black on the black white layer I was making to make a mask. Also used dodge or burn to help with the separation.

When done I copied the black/white layer into a levels layer mask and ctrl clicked to get a selection. Then used the selection on the original to delete the background.

Not the best but better than nothing....:p

Butch

http://www.pixentral.com/hosted/1K9z0ehEbZYBpdy1Sve5cPt1wAt3qV0_thumb.jpg (http://www.pixentral.com/show.php?picture=1K9z0ehEbZYBpdy1Sve5cPt1wAt3qV0)

[Daviskw]

Just for fun I thought I'd let your Maxie drive my Jadie nuts...:D

Butch

http://www.pixentral.com/hosted/1hOx1fOZwipc2zzXbJxDSOD9rwcZwN1_thumb.jpg (http://www.pixentral.com/show.php?picture=1hOx1fOZwipc2zzXbJxDSOD9rwcZwN1)

[Juergen D]

...except for Maxie's Maine Coon lynx tips (the hair growing out from the very tips of his ears - about 3/4" long).

Butch,
I like your cat! And I am so glad that you also missed those lynx tips...:rolleyes: ;)

Seriously, the one thing I didn't care that much about on mine was the softness of tail as opposed to rest of the body. Yours is more consistent and, if you place Maxie on a not too contrasting background, he'll look really good, like in your window picture.

Juergen

[Daviskw]

Juergen

I try to ignore things like ear and eyebrow hair… just ask my Daughter, she will tell you I’ve ignored my own for years….eeeewwwwwww

Butch

[jburnell]

Wow! Butch! That pic of Jadie and Maxie is absolutely awesome!! You even put a shadow behind Maxie (and heehee...ya cut off his lynx tips, too, but I guess if eyebrows and ears aren't your thing...well, I understand :D ).

Aw...I love this! You guys have given me lots to work on here for the weekend...too much to do at work to spend much time until then. <sigh>

Thanks so much! I'll post when I get something "postable" for y'all to critique. Now, that's a scary thought! :)

Jules