[Photoshop Tutorial V: Extracting Backgrounds]
By
This tutorial is for Photoshop 7 and CS users, since I only have a Windows OS, I can’t be sure if it is the same for a Mac or Linux.
In this tutorial, I will show you how you can get rid of backgrounds
in pictures, using a different methods. Photoshop is a registered trademark of
Adobe Inc. You may link to this tutorial, but its intellectual copyright belongs only to me, Jonathan Wu.
All of the features mentioned in the program itself are copyrighted by Adobe.
Simple Extractions:
When you want to extract the background of an image the tools will vary according to how complex your image is.
We will start with a basic extraction of a very simple picture. First, download this
picture and open it in Photoshop. Before we can make a transparent background, we need to unlock the pixels. So first, go to your
layers pallet and copy the background layer. Now, delete the original layer called background. Next, select the Magic Wand tool
( ) and make sure your settings are as follows:
Now click anywhere on the white with the Magic Wand tool, it should select all the white for you, like the picture on the left.
Now you can press delete or go to Edit \ Clear to clear out all the white pixels. Now, to see if there are any residual pixels
(this becomes more important with more complex images), make a new layer, and then fill it with a black colour. Black will
make any stray pixels visible because it is the complete opposite of the white we just cleared out. In this case, we have executed
a perfect extraction of a simple image, so let’s move on to a more difficult picture.
Intermediate Extraction:
Download this picture and open it in Photoshop. Like before,
copy the background layer and delete the original background. Now we are going to use the Polygonal Lasso Tool
( ) to eliminate the background. Select the lasso and
then enlarge the picture to about 400%. Now, we need to select the border of the portrait all around so that we can select all
the background. Make sure that Feather is set to 0, and Anti-aliased is turned off. When you have selected all the background
it should look like this:
Now press Delete or go to Edit \ Clear to clear the background. Now make two new layers, fill one with white color and the other
with black color. Now switch between colors and see if the portrait looks good or not. If the edges seem rough, you will have to fine
edit the picture. To do this, enlarge it to 400% again, and make sure that you have the portrait layer selected for this, also keep
the white layer visible. Now select the smudge tool ( ), and
set the strength to 50% and the brush to a 3 point normal brush. Now what you need to do is go along the edge of the portrait to
smoothen it out. Like smudging a paiting, you start from the inside of the picture and smudge outward. Be careful not to smudge too
much or too far, because it will make the picture look very blurry. The end result should look like the picture to the left.
Lessons:
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