Photoshop - Remove Background - Isolate Foreground - Tutorial

For HIGH QUALITY: http://FreePhotosAndArt.com Sharp full screen video on home site.

In this tutorial we are going to remove an unwanted background. To do so, we first have to isolate the foreground objects that we want to keep, in this case, some beautiful purple orchids.

When you open a file, photoshop places it in a window sized large enough to allow a full preview, while remaining small enough for other files to be opened and managed at the same time. This size is not suitable for advanced editing, so we are going to enlarge it. To do so, click the View menu, and click Fit on Screen. If you hover your cursor over an edge of the window, a double-arrow cursor will appear. Click and drag the edge to give yourself more editing room.

Now return to the View menu, and select Actual Pixels. This will give you a full, uninterpreted view of your file, with each pixel in your file mapping to a pixel on your screen.

Use the vertical and horizontal scroll bars to find a suitable area to begin your selection. I prefer to start at the edge of the image if the foreground is touching an edge.

The tool we will be using is called the Polygonal Lasso Tool. To select this tool click and hold on the third tool from the top on your toolbar, until the flyout menu appears. Choose the Polygonal Lasso Tool from the flyout menu.

The Polygonal Lasso Tool works like a dot to dot drawing game. Each click of your mouse defines a dot, and straight lines are drawn beween each dot. This may appear, at first glance, to be a poor choice for selecting curves, but it is not. The rule of thumb is, the tighter the curve, the more dots required to follow the curve with accuracy. I have found that this selection tool gives the greatest amount of control while making a selection.

While marking off your selection, keep in mind that edges are not always well defined. You will often have to make a best guess as to where the line should fall. You can make adjustments later, but they can be time consuming, so try to get it right on the first try. Also avoid double-clicking, an easy mistake to make when you have been laying down dots for some time. Double-clicking signals that you are done creating your selection, and joins the final dot to the first dot you made. This can be catastophic if done at the wrong time.

The best part of using this tool is that it does not matter where your mouse travels, as long as it is in the right place when you click to lay down that next dot. This makes it very forgiving to those of us with unsteady hands, or who get interrupted frequently while working.

To pan the screen for a better view of your subject, simply pull the lasso over the edge of the window, and the view will adjust accordingly. You can do this in any direction, as long as you are not at the edge of the file.

I'll now spare you the drudgery of watching me slowly create my initial selection, and fast forward to the point where it is almost complete.

This 18 seconds of quick time represents 30 minutes of actual work. The actual time it takes to complete an initial selection depends, of course, on the complexity of your file.

When you need your selection to follow the edge of your file, keep in mind that you can define dots outside the edge of the file, and the selection will trim itself to the exact edge. This is very handy for ensuring that you have not missed any pixels along the edge.

Here we have reached the starting point of our initial selection. If we hover over our initial dot, a small circle will appear on the lower right of the Polygonal Lasso Tool cursor. By clicking when this circle is present, we signal that we are done, and the selection closes. We could also have double-click from any point near or far from the initial dot, and the selection would close by drawing a straight line between the final and first dot.

We now click View, Fit On Screen, for an overview of our initial selection.

This is also a good time to save our initial selection so that we can reload it if necessary. To do so, click Select, Save Selection, and type in a unique name for the selection. In this case, I am giving it the name Outer, as none of the inner elements have been selected yet.

Here I am pointing out various inner elements, which in this case are peices of the background framed by the orchids, which need to be removed from the current selection.

I use View, Actual Pixels, to get the level of detail that I need to begin, adjust the size of the file window, and use the Navigator to move into position.

[ More text at http://FreePhotosAndArt.com ]

Category:

Education

Tags:

• photoshop
• tutorial
• background
• forground
• selection
• isolate
• isolation
• cut
• out
• copy
• paste
• polygonal
• lasso
• tool
• visual
• arts

[CRAZYTACO10]

If I have things that are in broken up sections, how do I select each section without de-selecting the other. So for example if your flowers were broken up, how would you do the same thing you did in the video, but keep all the flowers?

[FreePhotosAndArt]

@CRAZYTACO10 You can use the SHIFT key, once you have completed your first selection, to start another selection without deleting the first selection. Also, if you need to CUT AWAY a part of the first selection, after it is complete, you can use the ALT key to start a new selection ... the area of which will be cut away from the first selection; using ALT is like doing a negative selection, or a de-selection.

[PurpleLenzPhoto23]

like the tutorial it helps alot but everytime i use the it.. it wont let me finish it keeps ending right when i start like i a double clicking and i am not do you know what is goin on

[FreePhotosAndArt]

@PurpleLenzPhoto23 , you are clicking too fast ... a double-click closes the selection from the double-click point to the starting point; this happens to me too, so I have learned to click slower ...

[cathrosser]

I did exactly as this guy says and my picture STILL opens up with its background (a white one) PLEASE someone help me solve this issue! Its urgent! Please!! I'll keep my eye on this msg board...

[FreePhotosAndArt]

Mark off the image as show, then click Edit, Copy, Edit, Paste. That will create a new layer with the cut portion of the image. In the layers dialog, delete the background layer. You will see a checkered background which tells you that there is NO background. Now, if you save in a format like GIF that supports transparency, your image will appear to "float" over other elements on a webpage for example, letting the background of the webpage show through the transparent areas.

[justeen1990]

wow, this helps a lot. THANKS A LOT!

[strongy96]

good tut.. thanks

[image01ify]

If you have ever done any image editing in Photoshop, you know that one of the hardest things to do is to take an image out of its current background. I have a very easy way to do this, which is also very accurate in getting just the image that you......yantram BPO services Pvt Ltd

[image01ify]

Photoshop masking is one of the most essential works of graphic design and used for background deletion of any difficult image. It is the best imaging techniques that can also be a composite image from its background. Photoshop masking can facilitate........yantram BPO services Pvt Ltd

[molewizard]

Not the best way to do this. Use blue channel.

[TheRino2009z]

Tx..

[robertvoice]

¬_¬ This is the difficult way to do this. Is faster using the Blue Channel.

[aggoodgirl]

Very helpful for me...thank you