Eliminating Background ??

[Apple Corps]

I have a photo of the earth and need to remove the black background behind it - winding up with the circular image of earth. The magnetic lasso in Photoshop is very very tedious and requires some skill (or patience) that I don't have

Is there a better tool than magnetic lasso to use?

Some detailed guidance would be most appreciated.

 

[jmann]

background eraser tool. works like magic

click and hold the eraser button until three more options appear and choose background eraser tool. it's easy to figure out how to use.

 

[ChrisA]

I have a photo of the earth and need to remove the black background behind it - winding up with the circular image of earth. The magnetic lasso in Photoshop is very very tedious and requires some skill (or patience) that I don't have

Is there a better tool than magnetic lasso to use?

Some detailed guidance would be most appreciated.

None of the automatic tools are perfect. You will have to go in under 100% or more zoom and adjust the selection if you need it perfect. But the fastest way in your case is to select the background then "invert the selection".
The lasso tool will do a pretty good job of finding all the black, then invert.

 

[Apple Corps]

jmann4489 - I am obviously a PS beginner and am not finding it al that intuitive. In PS CS3 10.0.1 I have the background eraser and there are the following choices showing:

Brush - select pixel size
Sample once, Sample continuous, Sample background swatch
Tolerance 1 - 100%
Protect foreground color (check box)

I've doodled around but no results yet - would you be so kind as to give me more detail about the steps I need to take (other than getting a book and studying!!)

Edit - part of my problem is not understanding layers :-0

 

[Apple Corps]

It might be faster for me to provide the image

 

[Phrasikleia]

Uh...masking jobs don't get much easier than a perfect circle. Just use the Elliptical Marquee Tool to select the globe. If you don't get the selection right on the first try, just go to Select-->Transform Selection to finesse it a bit.

 

[macjram]

 

[Apple Corps]

macjram - whoa - that was so fast and did the job - thank you so very much!

PS is a powerful program and clearly will take more effort on my part to learn much more about using it. The user manual is just not getting it for me - I find myself gridlocked at many points.

Thanks again - much appreciated

 

[Apple Corps]

BTW - I asked the Mods to resize the image for this thread

 

[FrankieTDouglas]

You made this exact same thread, with the exact same image, two months ago. I made an image depicting step by step directions on how to do what you're wanting to do.

https://forums.macrumors.com/threads/586387/

 

[Apple Corps]

Frankie - you are correct - I tried to do it but had no luck - so I put it on the back burner and worked on the content. All of the sudden it dawned on me that I never got the image background free and ready to use.

Experienced PS users know the drill so well - there are some things in PS that are pretty intuitive - not so with other things. Instructions from those experienced users are no doubt clear but for me - on this software - dead ends are everywhere. I really need to get some tutoring on using PS - it is one of the few software packages that I just don't grasp readily - especially anything requiring layers. It appears to be too complex for rapid learning via trial and error.

 

[PCMacUser]

Uh...masking jobs don't get much easier than a perfect circle. Just use the Elliptical Marquee Tool to select the globe. If you don't get the selection right on the first try, just go to Select-->Transform Selection to finesse it a bit.

I'll second that suggestion. Using the elliptical marquee tool allows all elliptical shapes, as well as a perfect circle (just hold down Shift to get the circle while you drag). While the mouse button is still held down you can also press Spacebar to move the selection around.

 

[Apple Corps]

I'll second that suggestion. Using the elliptical marquee tool allows all elliptical shapes, as well as a perfect circle (just hold down Shift to get the circle while you drag). While the mouse button is still held down you can also press Spacebar to move the selection around.

In Keynote there is a function that may do the same job Keynote > format > mask with shape.

Easy to use and got me over the hurdle for the moment. I will go into PS tonight and try the marquee tool - I have to get over this learning disability with PS

 

[PCMacUser]

I will go into PS tonight and try the marquee tool - I have to get over this learning disability with PS

Don't be afraid of it.

I did an art course this year which included Photoshop training, including this exact kind of masking. Just wait until you see what you can do with channel masks, heh heh. Don't look so worried.