[rtsy]

Hi Everyone,

I've been a graphic designer for years, but am just starting to digitally scrapbook. And while I love working with what other designers have created, I really want to be able to make some of my own embellishments.

It's that time of year when my local Farmer's Market is "a-bloom" in so many wonderful flowers. I bought some last week, and was so struck by their colorful beauty that I wanted to make some .pngs from them for my scrapping. I didn't like the way they looked scanned (kind of squished against the glass) so I thought it would be best to take a photo of them on either a white or black surface. I spent several hours taking photos of them in various layouts.

I began with the photo on a white surface, but found that I ran into a couple of different problems. If I photographed in sunlight, the colors were great, but there were SO many shadows. If I photographed in shade/overcast skys, the colors did not pop. If I used a flash on my camera, again, there were alot of shadows which made it harder to cut out of the background later. I did stumble across a nifty tip, however. If I took a piece of clear plastic (from the side of a zip-type bag) and folded it over several times (about 6-8 layers) and then held/taped that over my camera flash, it diffused the flash to where there was a good balance of color, but not *too* many shadows.

I then took my images into Corel Photo-paint X4. The Cut-out lab there is fantastic, though the flower I was working with was a cluster of dianthus. Unfortunately, there were *so* many little spike-y buds and ruffle-y petals, that it took me nearly 2 hours to drag around the edges and inside of all the little spaces to cut out the background. I thought that there had to be an easier way. I came to the forums here and found folks talking about the background eraser in PSE. I have PSE 2.0 and tried that. Unfortunately, I encountered problems there as well. I could use the background eraser just fine, but found that I could not get a good balance of tolerance where it would fully remove the background, without also taking away some of the area of the flowers. If I used a low enough tolerance (3%), not all of the background would be removed. Anything higher, and it would start to take away the flower petals. I did persist, but when I thought I finally had a clean image and pasted it on top of a colored background paper, I was dismayed to find so many lingering little blotches of the original white/shadowed background.

This leads me to my questions:

1. Do you know whether I would be better off to photograph the flowers against a black background to reduce/eliminate the shadows which might make the tolerance issue easier? (I'm presuming that if I had a completely black background that I could set the tolerance at 1% to take *only* black away from the background.) But I'm also concerned that I will lose all of the deep green colors in the stems and leaves.

2. Would I be best to choose a background of some other weird color (florescent pink, perhaps) which would NOT be in flower at all, and then try to use some type of remove or replace color function. If so, is there a way to replace the color to a transparent color?

3. Or is there some way to tell the export out to .png to select a certain color and to make it transparent (much like making a transparent .gif)?

4. Do you know if there is an easier way to cut out the flowers in a later version of PSE? (I could afford to upgrade my PSE in a month or so, but could get the trial download in the meantime.) I'd love to get any of the CS's but simply don't have the $$ right now.

5. I noticed that once I did get most of the background removed, and saved the image as a .png that I ran into two other problems. One, I noticed that upon placing the image into a new document, that the "edges" of the .png were in a square shape the same size as the original photo. I was under the impression that the "edges" of the image/document would now correspond to the edges of the flowers themselves after being made into a .png, much like the .pngs I've purchased here at ScrapGirls. I'm concerned that I would not be able to appropriately layer my multiple flowers (to make a cluster) with such large edges. I was able to crop them closer to the flower itself, but I really wanted the edges to be irregular around the flower. Am I missing a step here to give it the irregular edges, and if so, what might that be?

6. I did try to paste multiple copies of the same dianthus on top of each other, and while the images underneath the others did show "through" under the square edges of the image above, I did find a "halo" of sorts (light grey, as if from the original shadow around the flower edge in the photo) around the edges of each flower. I'm presuming that this indeed comes from my using such a low tolerance in the background eraser. What to do, then??

Thank you all for reading, and any help you may be able to share is very much appreciated. Tomorrow could be another flower-gathering day, but I don't want to load up when I can't seem to make the ones I have work yet.

Take care and Happy 4th,
rtsy

[Smiles]

I use PSE5 and the background eraser brush. For my final clean up, I zoom in several times past actual pixels, and get my brush down to 3 pixels, and I'm happy with the result. I left the tolerance at the default 50%. Does that help any?

[Wendy J]

rtsy, on 02 July 2010 - 04:28 PM, said:

Hi Everyone,

I've been a graphic designer for years, but am just starting to digitally scrapbook. And while I love working with what other designers have created, I really want to be able to make some of my own embellishments.

It's that time of year when my local Farmer's Market is "a-bloom" in so many wonderful flowers. I bought some last week, and was so struck by their colorful beauty that I wanted to make some .pngs from them for my scrapping. I didn't like the way they looked scanned (kind of squished against the glass) so I thought it would be best to take a photo of them on either a white or black surface. I spent several hours taking photos of them in various layouts.

I began with the photo on a white surface, but found that I ran into a couple of different problems. If I photographed in sunlight, the colors were great, but there were SO many shadows. If I photographed in shade/overcast skys, the colors did not pop. If I used a flash on my camera, again, there were alot of shadows which made it harder to cut out of the background later. I did stumble across a nifty tip, however. If I took a piece of clear plastic (from the side of a zip-type bag) and folded it over several times (about 6-8 layers) and then held/taped that over my camera flash, it diffused the flash to where there was a good balance of color, but not *too* many shadows.

I then took my images into Corel Photo-paint X4. The Cut-out lab there is fantastic, though the flower I was working with was a cluster of dianthus. Unfortunately, there were *so* many little spike-y buds and ruffle-y petals, that it took me nearly 2 hours to drag around the edges and inside of all the little spaces to cut out the background. I thought that there had to be an easier way. I came to the forums here and found folks talking about the background eraser in PSE. I have PSE 2.0 and tried that. Unfortunately, I encountered problems there as well. I could use the background eraser just fine, but found that I could not get a good balance of tolerance where it would fully remove the background, without also taking away some of the area of the flowers. If I used a low enough tolerance (3%), not all of the background would be removed. Anything higher, and it would start to take away the flower petals. I did persist, but when I thought I finally had a clean image and pasted it on top of a colored background paper, I was dismayed to find so many lingering little blotches of the original white/shadowed background.

This leads me to my questions:

1. Do you know whether I would be better off to photograph the flowers against a black background to reduce/eliminate the shadows which might make the tolerance issue easier? (I'm presuming that if I had a completely black background that I could set the tolerance at 1% to take *only* black away from the background.) But I'm also concerned that I will lose all of the deep green colors in the stems and leaves.

2. Would I be best to choose a background of some other weird color (florescent pink, perhaps) which would NOT be in flower at all, and then try to use some type of remove or replace color function. If so, is there a way to replace the color to a transparent color?

3. Or is there some way to tell the export out to .png to select a certain color and to make it transparent (much like making a transparent .gif)?

4. Do you know if there is an easier way to cut out the flowers in a later version of PSE? (I could afford to upgrade my PSE in a month or so, but could get the trial download in the meantime.) I'd love to get any of the CS's but simply don't have the $$ right now.

5. I noticed that once I did get most of the background removed, and saved the image as a .png that I ran into two other problems. One, I noticed that upon placing the image into a new document, that the "edges" of the .png were in a square shape the same size as the original photo. I was under the impression that the "edges" of the image/document would now correspond to the edges of the flowers themselves after being made into a .png, much like the .pngs I've purchased here at ScrapGirls. I'm concerned that I would not be able to appropriately layer my multiple flowers (to make a cluster) with such large edges. I was able to crop them closer to the flower itself, but I really wanted the edges to be irregular around the flower. Am I missing a step here to give it the irregular edges, and if so, what might that be?

6. I did try to paste multiple copies of the same dianthus on top of each other, and while the images underneath the others did show "through" under the square edges of the image above, I did find a "halo" of sorts (light grey, as if from the original shadow around the flower edge in the photo) around the edges of each flower. I'm presuming that this indeed comes from my using such a low tolerance in the background eraser. What to do, then??

Thank you all for reading, and any help you may be able to share is very much appreciated. Tomorrow could be another flower-gathering day, but I don't want to load up when I can't seem to make the ones I have work yet.

Take care and Happy 4th,
rtsy

In order to create a png object, before you do any editing of your picture ensure that the flower layer does not have the lock key active - to do this (in Photoshop) just double click on the layer and answer OK - this makes your flower an editable layer and not a locked background. After you've completed your editing, move or copy the flower into a new document ENSURING THAT THE BACKGROUND IS TRANSPARENT AND NOT WHITE. Save as a PNG. This has always worked for me as long as I remember to unlock the background layer BEFORE I do any editing. Good luck and hope this helps.

[BarbaraC1977]

Hi Rtsy, and welcome! I have used Photo-Paint, too, and love its tools, although I'm finally getting a little more comfortable with Adobe products, and can now go back & forth.

Another tool in Photo-Paint that you might find helpful for refining your image is the Mask, Color Mask tool. You can set it to sample colors in your image, either adding or subtracting from the mask. (I don't know if/what the equivalent PSE/PS tool is.) I've used it to clean up edges for icons, and to select and then recolor very tiny areas. The Mask, Mask Outline tools (feather, expand, reduce, smooth, etc, may also be helpful after selection.

Hope this helps, and welcome to Scrap Girls!

[Smiles]

I should have said I create a new document with a transparent background and drag the photo onto it before I start extracting. That way I don't have to worry about losing the original, and to save as a png is easy.

[LauraPM]

I am no expert at all, only been doing this for 6 months or so, but I love extracting so I have done a fair amount of ot. I use PSE7 and have not ever been very happy with the results from using one of the selection tools then erasing what is not selected. So I go low tech. I start by opening my photo and click on the erase backgrount tool and click anywhere all in a portion I will be erasing. Then I switch over to the erase tool as it does a much cleaner job and zoom way in on the pix and start erasing. I often start with a fairly large eraser size, but not so big that I'll have to go over it again. After the first erase click Next to my image to extract I move over along the outline of the object and hold the shift key down and click again. This will erase a straight line between the clicks. I take my time making lots of small short line which can make a really nice curve eventually if you do it right.

When I think I am done I click on the magic wand tool. Click anywhere in th erased portion and if I have any little bits that I missed I just switch back to the erasure, hit CTRL-D to un-select and do my clean up work. This seems to be a good way for me to catch what I have missed.

Once I have the object 'outlined' in erasure I switch to a bigger brush, zoom out a little and finish erasing the bg. When I'm all done I crop it down to closer to the image and save as a .png file. It does take a fair amount of time, but I'm much happier with the results. I just think of it as adult coloring, lol! Don't know if this helps or not.

[Sara Arell]

Welcome to Scrap Girls, Rtsy - it appears you have gotten a lot of good advice here already and I use some of the same methods as the girls here have mentioned. I do most of my extractions in Photoshop and while I do have problems with some of them, I usually end up with an extraction I can live with. I do my extractions pretty much like Gayle said - I blow my photo up beyond the pixel point and can really get to all of those problem areas that way. Does that make sense?

[rtsy]

Thank you very much, girls!

I get to stay home this afternoon and will be able to give your suggestions a try. I very much appreciate your help as well as your welcome messages.

I did find myself shopping for more flowers this past Saturday Market, even though I thought I would wait. I can't help it - my booth there is bordered on two sides by flower vendors! I did notice, however, that I was more selective in my choices, now being aware of how much "trouble" it would be to cut out around all of the parts. Even so, I still *had* to get the most wonderful irises, with amazingly mottled blue and purple petals I had never seen before.

If you think of any more suggestions, I am very happy to try them.

Take care, and thanks again.
rtsy