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Changing background on Photoshop

marclapierre13

marclapierre13

macrumors 6502a
Original poster
Jul 7, 2005
869
0
I want to change my picture background.
I have an object ( a person) that I want to cut out and out and put onto a different background.
Any tips and steps to do this please?

thanks
 
Go to Filter, then Extract, and outline the person using the brush tool with a green outline, then fill them in with the paint bucket tool with blue, then hit ok or preview and it should extract the person from the background and leave an alpha channel.

Or you can use the lasso tool,

Or you can use the paths tool,

Or you can erase the background,

Or you can use the masking tool,
 
Thanks. I think the background I chose from the original image is a little complex, seems the extract has a hard time (it has blurred and feathered edges around most of the extracted image)
 
marclapierre13 said:
I want to change my picture background.
I have an object ( a person) that I want to cut out and out and put onto a different background.
Any tips and steps to do this please?

thanks
Click to expand...

This is one of the hardest things to do well, unless you have a nice clean background. There are numerous techniques, some involving channels, some involving just hard work of tracing.

Typically it's all fun until you get to the hair, and then it's a disaster for most people.

Can you post your picture here and let us take a look at it?
 
Digital Skunk said:
Go to Filter, then Extract, and outline the person using the brush tool with a green outline, then fill them in with the paint bucket tool with blue, then hit ok or preview and it should extract the person from the background and leave an alpha channel.

Or you can use the lasso tool,

Or you can use the paths tool,

Or you can erase the background,

Or you can use the masking tool,
Click to expand...

FWIW, what are your thoughts on using the "Magic Wand" tool to do some of the edge tracing? I've mucked around with it a few times at various settings and it ...kinda, sorta... seems to mostly do okay (is that non-committal enough for ya? :)


-hh
 
-hh said:
FWIW, what are your thoughts on using the "Magic Wand" tool to do some of the edge tracing? I've mucked around with it a few times at various settings and it ...kinda, sorta... seems to mostly do okay (is that non-committal enough for ya? :)


-hh
Click to expand...

I love the wand only if my background is one solid (or a variation of a certain) color. It is a death sentence to efficiency when you have a complex background. If you turn up or down the tolerance you can get away with not selecting the colors that are in your subject as well, but many times it's just a headache.

I like using it in tandem with the lasso tool, and it works well you want to select large chunks of an image, but I am an extract --> erase --> color selection type of guy.
 
sg1s0184nd5.jpg


I might try to do it with a clearer background, might work out better.
 
K, it appeared a little better, but still does it a little.
(just a quick extraction)
 

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marclapierre13 said:
K, it appeared a little better, but still does it a little.
(just a quick extraction)
Click to expand...

Yeah... I did a quick extract on the file on the post and it was too small. I think brightening it up and using the erase tool will do the trick, or using the lasso and magic wand.

marclapierre13 said:
The story of my life lol...ive been saying this for years:p
Click to expand...

Tell me about it. I really hate it when some random stranger across the room from me talks about that when I am within ears length of the conversation.
 
pprior said:
This is one of the hardest things to do well
Click to expand...

haha, hardly. Ever had to get rid of solid white glasses flare? :eek:I do contract retouching for a couple of local studios who apparently aren't that great. Taking people from one photo and putting them into another isn't that hard.

The part about the hair-
I usually put the most detail in the selection of the hair area, selecting more pixels than necessary, and after I paste them into the new background, go in with a low opacity, soft eraser and fine tune the hair. A bit of smudging with low pressure, and it's done. Transparency is the best thing you can do to the edges of people's hair when doing this kind of thing. Gotta let just a hint of the background show through on the very very edge of their hair (unless they're bald, in which case it's not a problem to begin with!):D

Overall, my tool for clipping people out is the polygonal lasso tool, by holding alt/option in regular lasso mode. That way I can quickly switch between the two. I just zoom in pretty close (depends on how important the job is, but typically about 150%), and start making points. Always make more points than you think you'll need, because otherwise it will inevitably come out looking like you used scissors instead of magic (aka Photoshop).
 
seenew said:
haha, hardly. Ever had to get rid of solid white glasses flare? :eek:I do contract retouching for a couple of local studios who apparently aren't that great. Taking people from one photo and putting them into another isn't that hard.
.
Click to expand...


Well you got me there. I'm a decent photographer, but a relative photoshop newbie. I use masking plugins to do my extraction because of that.

Off topic, but could you share some hints about glasses flare? Other than taking the lenses out before shooting folks with glasses, that is one of my battles in my studio work right now.
 
k, ,ill give thata shot.
Right now i m using my MBP trackpad, so Im going to wait until I get my mouse and keyboard to do a better job.
 
pprior said:
Well you got me there. I'm a decent photographer, but a relative photoshop newbie. I use masking plugins to do my extraction because of that.

Off topic, but could you share some hints about glasses flare? Other than taking the lenses out before shooting folks with glasses, that is one of my battles in my studio work right now.
Click to expand...

You're doing the right thing already by removing the lenses. Other than that, if it's completely blocked up white, there's little you can do other than clone in their eyes from a photo that's not glared. In a recent job I was lucky enough that the woman had her child with her in the shot who had similar enough eyes that I just used hers and adjusted them.
 
set the pen tool to the second setting it could be used on, should be up top on the panel, then zoom in the object ( in this case the person) then click on area then just go around the out side of the picture, the farther you zoom in the longer it takes to out line the subject, but the more clean the picture looks after its cut out. then just cut it, and paste it as a new layer on the background you like
 
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