Edge of Image Isolated with Background Eraser

[PluginCreativity]

I've tried lots of tools for cutting images away from their background and still find the PSP Background Eraser tool the easiest and most intuitive but I was wondering about how best to optimize the edge that's left. I don't want it to be too hard but often it is left too soft and small remnants of the original background are left. This is particularly true if the object was on a light background and I want to use it on a dark one.

TIA

Paul

[Kathy_9]

Every image is different so your methods will vary. You could try zooming in really close so you can remove the color fringe around the edges. Also, experiment with the settings on the Tools Option palette. For starters I would set Opacity at 100% and increase Tolerance a little at a time until you are happy with the results.

[PluginCreativity]

Thanks Kathy. And yes, I'm probably using a background eraser which is too big and expecting miracles

But the issue is that unless I remove any anti-aliasing (and thereby get a hard edge) I get some kind of residual indication of the background - I have to as the edge is always anti-aliased. Yes I can go round the image and remove those pixels which are too obvious but with a large complex image this will take a long time and the issue is that they have to be partially transparent.

Perhaps am asking too much or perhaps I should persevere more with other tools.

Paul

[JoeB]

Are you able to provide a copy of the full size actual image you are working on so that others have a better idea of what tools they might use? You'd have to let us know which parts of the image you want to keep and what should be erased.

[PluginCreativity]

Thanks Joe, I've attached (hopefully) a the Book Open image from our first collection for you to consider. (Restricted to a lo-res upload allowed by the though).

We actually have lots of different images to process so we can give them away on the website. You can see one or two of the images we're working with, or get the full size image here:
http://www.plugincreativity.net/free-re ... ages.shtml Several would be more useful as isolated images IMO.

Part of the problem is these are old images taken on film and the grain becomes apparent when using the background eraser. As they have no commercial value I may have to decide to forget the idea but I hate to waste resources and I have some personal projects I want to use this for as well.

So if you've got any bright ideas I'd welcome them. Of course you may tell me that free images are two-a-penny these days so no-one wants/needs more.

Paul

[hartpaul]

Have you tried using the Object Extractor (Image > Object Extractor )
I tried this on your large book image and it produced a very good result.
This extracts the image fairly quickly and then you can use the eraser tool to make fine corrections or to unerase (use right click drag) sections that have been a bit harsh. You can also use a soft eraser and also change opacity to give soft edges.

[brucet]

Sometimes the hard way is the easy way. I've never had much luck with the auto or semi auto features. To extract something I use the Freehand selection tool and carefully work around the object. Doing several deletes to save any 'ooops' moments. Yes it may take longer but it can be very accurate.

regards

[flagpole]

I would suggest using the magic wand selector tool either after you have removed the back ground in order to remove the background.

Then use selection - modify to maybe expand the selection a little, outside feather it, then delete.

[PluginCreativity]

Thanks all.

I'm embarrassed to say I had forgotten or missed the Object Extractor completely but it works on the same principle as several others I've tried.

@brucet - I'm beginning to think you're right. And with a pen and tablet it might not be too onerous.

However, I've had a couple of ideas to try so I'm going to try a few experiments. If I find a useful solution I'll let port it here.

[Kathy_9]

It's not a free resource but Topaz Labs ReMask5 does an awesome job. Here are some tutorials. http://blog.topazlabs.com/software/remask/

[JoeB]

Thanks Joe, I've attached (hopefully) a the Book Open image from our first collection for you to consider. (Restricted to a lo-res upload allowed by the though).
Paul

Well, you've made it a bit confusing. Your original post said the problem was particularly acute when taking an image from a light background and placing it on a dark background, but the image you sent was of an image that was on a background that I would consider to be a dark background. Also, is that actually the size of the images you are posting? The image you posted would print relatively good photo quality at 200 pixels per inch, with the image printing out at 1.8 x 1.5 inches. Is that what you're actually providing for people?

Given the image you did post, I took away the dark background and placed the book on a white background, without noticeable artifacts. I'm also providing it with a red background. But if you are actually working with larger images than I would need a copy of a problem image at its original pixel and print size to work on.

[hartpaul]

I gather the idea is to obtain a clean image on a transparent background so that you can then place that image on any background light , dark, colored and not see it as an obvious paste.

For Joe- a link was given in an earlier post where you could download a zip file of the images which are larger than the OP has posted. The image of the open book is 1024 x 728 pixels in that zip file.
Here are the steps/ operations I would do.

1. Object extractor - while this is similar to the background eraser brush in its selection of which to remove and which to erase and requires the same brush strokes and movement, it has the additional advantage that it also completely erases to transparent all the surrounding area and so does not require extra steps with an eraser brush to remove unwanted background (or even selection of the object , Invert and hit delete key to remove the rest of the background.
2. As previously mentioned you can also us the right click and left click eraser brush to tidy up the edges of the image. I would also remove the original shadow as well. The eraser brush can be made soft and that will allow for the edges of the object to be softened so it blends easily to any new background.
3. In addition or as an alternative to step 3 you can also use the Magic Wand with Match Mode = All Opaque then Edit Selection from button on the layers palette or Selections > Edit Selection and this will provide a red mask over the object and show clearly where the excess bleeds into the transparent area. You can then use a paint brush with black to remove these overlaps and with a hardness set at say 50% clean up the image including removing any current shadows.
3. Lastly I would use the drop shadow (allows changing of apparent lighting to then convince viewers that the book is part of that new scene.)
My results shown after reducing the images from 1024 to 360 on the longest side.
Placing with drop shadow on a green background


With drop shadow on white background


No drop shadow (from png merged)


Drop shadow on a patterned background


and changing the drop shadow slightly.

[JoeB]

For Hartpaul: I must be slow 'cause I missed the link!

That said, for images with basically a simple color background and an object with relatively sharp edges I find the Object Extractor a much more labour intensive method of removing the background. In fact, I find any method that requires the use of eraser or other brushes to do cleanup of stray pixels to be more labor intensive than the Magic Wand method for these types of images (and my steps can be scripted if you do a lot of these) so my preference is the Magic Wand. In my workflow below I did remove the existing shadow also in case that was the OP's objective. However (and while I also removed this), I don't believe that the dark area below the spine of the book is shadow. A close look shows it has texture, and I suspect it is the outside black cover of the book separated from the page binding, which you'll sometimes see happen with books.

My workflow was the one I always use for these types of simple objects:

1) Resize the original by 300%.

2) Magic Wand to select background - settings in this case were Mode Add, Match Mode RGB, Tolerance 30, Contiguous checked, Anti Alias checked, Outside. A couple of clicks on the background selected all of it.

2A) This next step is only necessary if you want to remove the existing shadow. To do so I changed to Freehand Selection Tool, Point to Point leaving the other settings as they were with the Magic Wand and used it to add the existing shadow to the original Magic Tool's selection.

3) Selections>Modify>Expand set to 3, and OK.

4) Selections>Modify>Inside Outside Feather, set to Inside and 2 and OK.

5) Hit delete and both background color and shadow are removed.

6) Resize back to original (1024 px wide). To this image, given there was readable text in the book I added a bit of unsharp mask (Radius 1, Strength 50, Clipping 5) to make it just a touch sharper. But then I had to resize even smaller (600px wide) to allow posting here (has to be under 500 kb) so it's not all that legible at that size anyway

You should be able to place any background behind the book cutout without any apparent artifacts or jaggies.

[flagpole]

It's interesting the different ways you've all handled the bottom of the spine of the book.

[brucet]

The book is a very simple image. Here's what I would do.

Freehand selection. Point to point. Set feather and smoothing on 1. Check Anti-alias.

Zoom into 300%. Click out near the edge of the image. Come across to the edge of the book. Click. Then click your way around about 1/4 of the book. Double left click to close the selection. (make sure you have a clear line back to your starting point). Hit the delete button.
Repeat until you have the book cut out.

Nice and clean with no leftover artifacts to clean up.

regards