best way to select "fur"

[rv_russo]

Hello,

I have a couple photos of my dogs that I really like, but they are on a distracting background. I would like to place them on a differnt background. There isn't a lot of contrast between their fur and the current background.

Does anyone have any suggestions for an easy way to do that without spending hours selecting each individual strand of fur - they are long haired dogs, so that could take forever. Any suggestions would be appreciated.

Thanks, Roberta

[Wendy]

Hi Roberta ...

There was a thread about this yesterday ... here is a link to it:

http://www.photoshopelementsuser.com/forum/showthread.php?t=7253

I'm afraid that there isn't a quick and easy way to do this one :(

Wendy

[rv_russo]

Thanks Wendy,

Maybe I'll trade my dogs in for goldfish. Just kidding - don't tell my dogs I said that!

Roberta

[Wendy]

Roberta ...

My cat Tansy has quite long hair and sometimes I think she would be much easier to Photoshop into new images if I shaved her first :eek: :)

Wendy

[karen donnybrook]

Wendy, I bet Tansy would not agree to that :rolleyes:

[Jodi Frye]

Well they do have hairless cats..they are quite strange looking but I bet they would be easy to select :) So, go buy a hairless cat for all your shots :D ...na all joke aside..the way I do it is to zoom in kind of close and use the lasso tool and kind of follow in a zig zag motion the best I can...select inverse,delete, deselect. Then with the smear/smudge finger tool I select a spatter tip brush from the defaults ... use [ to make brush smaller if needed and I lower the strenght to around 35 give or take and drag out from animal body outward...following the angle of the fur best i can. I use a wacom tablet.