Hi, quite possibly a simple thing, but not sure

[Derrick Fiddle]

Hi everyone, I'm kind of new to photo editing and this is probably an easy thing to do, but I was wondering how I could grab a specific image from a picture without having to trace it? For instance, there's a picture of a horse in a field, but I don't want the field in the background, only the horse and then use the horse by itself as its own picture. I've tried erasing the background, but I can't do it as precisely as I need it. Any help would be appreciated, thanks.

[apbrooks]

This question requires more than just a simple answer.

The first scenario would depend on whether or not the "horse" is on a simple background, not a lot of noise, color changes, shapes, etc. If the background is rather simple, then the best solution would be to use the Magic Wand tool. There are a few key settings that you'll have to consider. The Mode: setting should be set to Add. This is easily changeable using the Shift key in conjunction with the Magic Wand, but if you're new to this, then set it manually. I would recommend then setting the Match Mode: to RGB Value (typically the default setting) and then you will have to mess around with the Tolerance setting. Basically, if you open the Learning Center (F10) and then click on the Selection Tool / Magic Wand, it will walk you through how to do this.

The second option to this would be the Background Eraser tool (just under the eraser) and this tool rocks! Read about it in the learning center, experiment a bit with changing your brush size and then you might see some fantastic results. I love this tool!

The second scenario would be where you do have a busy background and in places it becomes difficult to even visually see where the horse ends and the background begins. For example, even a dark horse against a dark object can be difficult. In this case, I would consider something like this:
First, I would use the eraser tool to get rid of as much of the "big" stuff as possible. Be careful not to get too close to the object.
Second, I would then look and see if I could see definitive visual borders between the background and the horse, in which case I would use the background eraser to work around it carefully. If not, then while you may not like the idea of tracing, I can tell you that I use the Selection Tool / Freehand Select. From there I set the following:
Selection Type: Point to Point or Edge Seeker (play with both, but I prefer the former)
Mode: Add while working, then depending on what my needs are I remove or replace
Feather: I normally leave at 0 for this type of image
And I typically have Anti-Alias checked for a smoother selection

Anyway, I hope this helps.

Best of luck with you and Secretariat!

Allen

[LeviFiction]

You really should work on a separate layer as well, I don't know about anyone else but I always make mistakes and some tools are not as easy to recover from without hitting Undo. With the actual image hidden and a copy on it's own layer (just duplicate the layer) you can reference back the original image if you accidentally cut something off. I find it easier to add things back in than attempt to Redo what failed the first time.

Of course the fine hairs are most likely going to be destroyed. I've been practicing with masking to fix this problem. Masks are another fun way to "cut" an image from its background.

Also which version of Paint Shop Pro do you have? X3 contains a somewhat rudimentary tool for cutting out objects, it's called the Object Extractor. Not worth upgrading for at this point but if you already have it's worth a try. Again on it's own layer. What I really like about this tool is that you can use the eraser tool to unerase portions that were deleted. So you can get the object selected as well as possible and then fix it from there by erasing the portions of the background that weren't erased and unerasing portions of the object that were. The tool is simple, you trace the object with the green brush, doesn't have to be extremely accurate or anything, then you fill in this outline (and it must be a complete outline) with the paint bucket tool. Hit "Process" and adjust the accuracy until you get something close to what you want.

With X2 Ultimate you got the Image Skill Background Remover plugin. This fun plugin is similar to the X3 Object Extractor as you define the area you want to keep, but you also define the area you want to remove. And it has advanced tools for unmixing colors to finer selection. $50 normally I believe.

Those, along with what's talked about above, are all I can think of.

[teknisyan]

Hello Derrick,

I think this tutorial will help you achieve what you are trying to do. You will be using the background remover and the tutorial is for PSP X2 but you can still apply to on PSP X3.

http://www.corel.com/servlet/Satellite/ ... 6553896584