Using the smart selection brush

[Ken Veal]

I have been trying to use the smart selection brush as advised in this tutorial-
https://learn.corel.com/tutorials/how-t ... ne-detail/
to drag a marquee around the image subjects with no success. I have used a screen shot to capture the image being used in the tutorial. The settings options in the version being used are different to PSPro 2018 which I am using and think that may be the problem. Can someone please advise me what they would set the following to in this case :-
1 Feather
2 Tolerance
3 Anti Alias
4 Inside or Outside (What does this do?)
4 smart edge
Ken

[jjangfree]

At least, smart edge should be checked for automatic area selection.
but, this tool is not so good. It does not work well on me too for some images.
viewtopic.php?f=56&t=62438&p=347959&hil ... sh#p348012

[jayson1945]

Probably not much help to you but ...the number of times I have tried to use the selection tool and nothing appears to be happening is usually because I've selected the wrong layer/image to work on, or more often the tool is set to "remove" instead of "ADD". It's easy to overlook with all the other settings available. Smart edge and anti alias I nearly always select though.

[rondo]

For me the selection technique in the tutorial you posted is cumbersome. I usually make a basic selection that is close, then edit the selection by hand with the paintbrush tool, using black and white in the materials palette to add/remove.
This video shows you how- https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BxdQK_lkaiQ
This webpage describes all the steps too- https://www.brighthub.com/multimedia/ph ... 52653.aspx

[hartpaul]

I agree that the use of the smart selection brush is difficult to use here. You will note in the video that they show the start of the use of the brush and then the finished result and not each step used in getting that clean selection. I suspect a bit off fiddling there as so many others have not been able to use that brush with the same success. Even using the magic wand does not work well as the blond hair of the woman and brownshorts of the guy are too close to the background in brightness and tone to allow a clean selection.
I would find it easier to use the Object Extractor to get the same result. Image > Object Extractor. You can then use the Eraser tool to clean up the edges using left click drag to remove excess background and righ tclick drag to replace subject and to correct mistakes.
This gives you the subjects on a transparent background and then can be copied and pasted as new layer on the new background and treated as in the video.

[Ken Veal]

Thank you all for the replies. I have touched on this subject before regarding Corel Tutorials but when someone with limited or no experience watches one they should not expect to get stuck part way through due to inadequate detail or prior knowledge being assumed. I realise that only showing the start and finish of the subject selection was shown due to time restraints but this issue was a crucial element and takes much longer than the rest of the tutorial put together.
Dragging around areas where the marquee is inside the subject via the freehand selection tool looked so easy to complete but that did not work for me either. I take some solace from the fact that other users who are far more experienced than me have had issues as well. At least this is all part of my learning curve but sometimes the time taken to resolve some of these what should be minor issues seem to take up much too much time

[Jean-Luc]

Image > Object Extractor. You can then use the Eraser tool to clean up the edges using left click drag to remove excess background and righ tclick drag to replace subject and to correct mistakes.

This feature is broken in PSP 2018. We can no more use the Eraser tool to correct Object Extractor tool mistakes (right-click doesn't work). Corel is shooting itself in the foot. The Object Extractor tool is unusable now.

[hartpaul]

I am having no problems with erase and unerase in PSP 2018 version 20.2.0.1 and Windows 10 version 1607

[Ken Berry]

Hartpaul -- can you use right click within the Object Extractor? Or by being able to erase, do you mean that once you have established the mask, you click the Edit Mask button to revert to the image with mask before extraction, and then can use the erase button?

[LeviFiction]

hartpaul the problem is very specifically how 2018 attempted to improve the erase and unerase options and how that efects attempting to fix the results of the object extractor. You know me, I've made a video to demonstrate.

https://drive.google.com/file/d/1xz189w ... ZJ4t5/view

[hartpaul]

Ok I see what you mean. I suspected that 2018 may dump the material that is supposed to be in the transparent area, but its is still there,. ( I had 2018 and X9 open and dragged the thumb from 2018 down to the taskbar icon for X9 and hovered there til it opened and then released on the workspace - same as copy and paste as new image. )
Then using the right click drag in X9 it brought the background in the transparent area up which it does not do in 2018.

However when I use the object extractor I generally do not get it cutting into the subject and so I do not need to recover material from the transparent area so I am first erasing the excess background from around the subject and if I go a bit far then right click drag still does unerase what I had erased , it just does not replace background that I did not first erase with the eraser tool. So for me that part all works correctly as I generally do not want to recover extra background material.