Best way to preserve flowing hair and remove bkg?

[carl365]

Hi folks,
Briefly, in Gimp I can reverse the image, reduce it to high contrast black and white, paint with white everything to keep, apply this mask to the image....etc. I can reproduce this in PSP but was wondering if PSP has another technique besides the b&W mask to preserve all the hair? I have a lot of pet photos with longish hair and must get this technique down.

Thank you!

[LeviFiction]

That method is actually pretty common in most software. PSP has the Object Extractor dialog that allows you to draw around objects you want to keep and then deletes the background. But may not give the best results depending on how stringy the hair is. There are also plugins that work with PSP that can dot his. ImageSkill had one that we got free with X2 Ultimate. You can try your luck with selections but because we don't have the refinement tools that Photoshop does I doubt those will work well for you.

Most people use selections or the Object Extractor because they are easy to do. The best use a method similar to the one you mention.

[carl365]

OK got it Levi, thanks. I'll play with the image extractor much more. Yes, on the B&W mask, there's another similar technique that manipulates the RBG colors to get even better separation of the hair, I'm going to play with that next. The preserving hair is a challenge but the B&W mask does a great job depending on the original image I've found.

[Kathy_9]

Topaz ReMask5 plug-in does a fine job but it's not free. They do offer a free trial so you can decide if you feel it's worth it. Their customer service and tech support are excellent and any upgrades to the product are always free.

[carl365]

Kathy_9, thanks, I'll go take a look at the plugin today.

[carl365]

Well I looked at the Topaz plugin, didn't download it yet but it appears to do about the same thing as the b&w mask, it reminded me somewhat of the Smart Carver tool. Anyway, off to get the trial of remask.

[Joelle]

Have you tried the Background Eraser?
Keep the size of fairly small for more accurate sampling.
I usually duplicate the image, sharpen the duplicate and use that for erasing the background, then make a selection and if the sharpened image is a little too sharp, go back to the original and work with that instead.
An excellent sharpening plugin is the free Redfield Sharplet :
http://www.redfieldplugins.com/filterSharplet.htm

Hope this helps

Joëlle

[hartpaul]

This gives an interesting technique for separating fine detail from a background:
http://graphicssoft.about.com/od/paints ... p_1jet.htm

[carl365]

hartpaul: wow thanks! that's exactly what this Gimp book I'm reading is describing only much better. Saved full screenshots. Never would have guessed it would be on a About site.

Joelle: thanks for the plugin site, those image sharpness's are impressive. I have to work a lot more with all the tools in PSP, including the bkg eraser. I'm finding learning is taking a good while.

Kathy_9: That remask plugin's price is a little steep, I'll have to see if the performance is worth it.

[AlanT]

I've used the background eraser tool for extracting people off a green screen. Here's what I can offer.

First, when dealing with hair, you'll need to convert the image to 8 bits, because the background eraser can't work in discontiguous mode with 16 bit images.

Next, you need to realize that your settings will be different depending on the specific area you're working with. Mainly the size and sharpness slider. You'll want a lower sharpness for hair than with the rest of the image. I tend to use a sharpness setting around 25 for hair, and around 60 for the rest of the person. You'll want to experiment to find the settings that work best for you and the image you're working with. I also lower the brush hardness in places. Density and Opacity should be at 100% at all times.

Levi has posted a couple of great tutorials on the background eraser on YouTube.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pRgHaVMxgEY
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=iHfk6VIJE1Q

These helped me a great deal.

One thing not mentioned in Levi's videos is that while PSP will do a fairly good job extracting a person off a green screen, there's a possibility that it won't be perfect. Here's how to make it perfect.

After you have the cleanest extraction you can get, lock the layer transparency.

Once the transparency is locked, zoom into an area that still has some green spill, use the eyedropper to select the hair color nearby, and then switch to the paintbrush tool. Change the mode to color and paint over the areas where you see green spill. This will remove the spill and replace the original hair color.

All in all, I can do a full extraction of a person from a green screen in about 5 minutes or less, and the result looks as good (or better) than custom tools made for this purpose.

Originally, I started with Green Screen Wizard, which is a great tool for quick and easy extractions. I also have ReMask, and while it does a great job with general extractions, it doesn't deal with color spill and "unmixing" colors.

[carl365]

Thank you AlanT, I'll be doing your tutorial today. And yes, I've been learning from Levi's tutorials since I got PSP not too long ago.