How could I remove a "paper color/texture" background?

[cadudesun]

Hi,

I intend to make a signature to be inserted in digital documents. I signed in a paper and scanned that. The resulting image (attached) has a "paper color/texture" background I would like to remove, maintaining the blue ink from pen and black ink from computer character. Is it possible? How would it be?

Thanks in advance,
Cadu

[coneill]

Select the white paper texture area with the magic wand, trying some different tolerances so you get the whole area selected.
Once you have a good selection, either hit the delete key (with your background color set to what color you want to replace the paper texture with) or invert the selection and paste the signature to a new blank document.

Conal

[LeviFiction]

You can also use the Background eraser tool, using nothing but the default settings (well I increased the size of the brush but the rest were all at the default) I was able to erase the back of the paper very easily. To make getting at the holes in the thumnail you've given us I also changed it from Contiguous to Discontiguous.

BackgroundEraser.png (150.33 KiB) Viewed 4297 times

If I turned down the 'Sharpness" setting I could also soften the blue ink portions. and do some demixing to keep some of the transparency.

BackgrounEraserSoft.png (150.81 KiB) Viewed 4297 times

I was also able to use a convoluted approach where I used the "Arithmetic" set to mix the Red and Blue channels using a mixing option of the "lightest" values and a bias of 30. Then I inverted this and used it to create a mask. This allows me to keep some of the transparency in the blue ink as well.

Masked.png (20.37 KiB) Viewed 4297 times

[cadudesun]

Great. It worked considering some of the methods explained!

Anyway, in order of getting improvements and learn PSP, some settings/methods are little unclear for me. I would appreciate further explanation:

a) "If I turned down the 'Sharpness" setting I could also soften the blue ink portions. and do some demixing to keep some of the transparency".
About sharpness, I could see it in "background eraser" tool and I set it to "0". But I couldn't find nothing related to "demixing". What is it?

b) "I used the "Arithmetic" set to mix the Red and Blue channels using a mixing option of the "lightest" values and a bias of 30". I couldn't understand this technique. Is it a kind of selection?

Thanks!

[ADonahoo]

It would be a lot easier to sign your name on a piece of plain white paper instead of a pink textured one.

[LeviFiction]

1) The sharpness setting determines how "sharp" the edges are as you erase the background. The higher the value the sharper more defined the edges. The lower the setting the softer the edges. It will also "demix" colors if it can leaving the non-erased portions slightly translucent. So there is no "demixing" option but the sharpness determines if there will be any attempt.

2) The Arithmetic option is a powerful command found under the "Image" menu. It lets you pick two images (the same or different ones) and lets you mix them using various methods.

These methods include determining if you want to use the whole image or just the Red, Green, or blue channels. And then the use of the "divisor" and "bias" settings make for many interesting effects. Obviously it's a little more involved than I want to take the time to get into but it's pretty cool.

[WilsonC]

2) The Arithmetic option is a powerful command found under the "Image" menu. It lets you pick two images (the same or different ones) and lets you mix them using various methods.

These methods include determining if you want to use the whole image or just the Red, Green, or blue channels. And then the use of the "divisor" and "bias" settings make for many interesting effects. Obviously it's a little more involved than I want to take the time to get into but it's pretty cool.

Interesting! Do you have a tutorial about this "Arithmetic" effect?

[LeviFiction]

Nope. I haven't managed to get to that one yet.