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Søren Langkilde Madsen
Søren Langkilde Madsen
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Masking challange

Apr 11, 2012 11:05 AM

Hi All

 

I have a challange removing the background for this piece of juvellery.

I want a complete neutral background. Would be cool if I could keep the shadows from the links.

I'm using Photoshop 12 (CS5).

Do you have some ideas as of how to arttack this problem?

 

-- Søren

 

film1120img132.jpg

544 Views   6 Replies   Latest reply: Curt Y, Apr 11, 2012 5:18 PM
 
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  • Curt Y
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    1. Curt Y,
    Apr 11, 2012 11:31 AM   in reply to Søren Langkilde Madsen
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    Many ways to do this.  Most involve selecting the part of the image you don't want and substituting something else.

     

    Check out this tutorial to give you some ideas.  http://tv.adobe.com/watch/the-russell-brown-show/masking-basics-in-pho toshop-cs5/

     

    Hope this helps.

     
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  • Paulo Skylar
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    2. Paulo Skylar,
    Apr 11, 2012 12:16 PM   in reply to Søren Langkilde Madsen
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    If you meant exactly what you said, that is, that you wanted only a completely neutral background, then here is an example using your original background, which is now neutral. If you meant something else, then  more details would be needed. If what you really need is to eliminate all of the textured background then that is a bit more work.

    Paulo

    Capture.PNG

     
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  • Søren Langkilde Madsen
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    3. Søren Langkilde Madsen,
    Apr 11, 2012 12:35 PM   in reply to Paulo Skylar
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    Sorry, I've been too vague in my question.

     

    I did take the pictures of this juvelery pretty fast - and thereby made some mistakes. One mistake was to use a cloth (though black) as background - but in harsh sunlight. This makes the texture of the cloth stand out. What I want is to swap this cloth background with a color or gradiant.

     

    I'm a bit shamed to show my first attempt

     

    First attempt was to place an solid color layer below the image, create a mask and just paint away the cloth.

     

     

     

     

     

    film1120img132-b.jpg

     

    The magic wand is not good to select on the cloth. Quick selection seems a bit more usefull on this cloth.

     

    Is this layer mask, paint away the right approach?

    What's the most efficient way to select the cloth - having these not that regular edges of the links of this chain?

     

    -- Søren

     
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  • Paulo Skylar
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    4. Paulo Skylar,
    Apr 11, 2012 1:19 PM   in reply to Søren Langkilde Madsen
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    I thought you might be asking to remove the textured background. The simplest approach, though not always possible, is to reshoot the jewelry.  If you must work with the image then painting in a mask is one approach which may work for this image, but I would suggest eliminating only the textured areas that have no shadows. In other words, keep the shadows. If you are not familiar with other selection techniques then painting a mask may turn out to be the quickest solution for you.

     

    Personally, I would use the pen tool to create paths, which you can then turn into selections and refine them if needed. The nice geometry of the rings should make this  work well. Alternatively, you could try using the magnetic lasso tool as the black edges of the shadows should trace nicely.

     

    Paulo

     
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  • Noel Carboni
    21,024 posts
    Dec 23, 2006
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    5. Noel Carboni,
    Apr 11, 2012 5:16 PM   in reply to Søren Langkilde Madsen
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    Some food for thought, in no particular order:

     

    • Work at a high resolution, upsample if need be, so that hand selections and whatnot are very accurate from the perspective of the overall image.

     

    • Don't be afraid of a little hard work...  For images that don't lend themselves to being automatically processed, there are always path and selection tools you can use to do the work by hand.

     

    • If you want to put things on new backgrounds think about the lighting too - in this case, don't forget about the shadows...

     

    Some visuals to get your creative thoughts flowing...

     

    C1.jpg

     

    C2.jpg

     

    C3.jpg

     

    C4.jpg

     

    C5.jpg

     

    C6.jpg

     

    C7.jpg

     

    C8.jpg

     

     

    -Noel

     
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  • Curt Y
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    6. Curt Y,
    Apr 11, 2012 5:18 PM   in reply to Noel Carboni
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    Very nice Noel!

     
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