Masking & Feathering...

[RainFire]

This may be a an over simplified question...

Where can I find step by step information on, or does anyone know how to remove the background of an image?

I am trying to create particular silouettes and I am having great difficulty doing so.

The images I have to work with are very high quality and I need to keep them that way.

I have access to Photoshop 7 and Fireworks MX and all the methods that I try short of the feathered eraser give me unacceptable jagged edges on the images.


Thanks all help is appreicated

[JayMan]

Outpatient will be able to give ya a excellent explaination on it...

I could try to explain it his way but i'd probably leave something out or give ya a wrong feather strength or something...

So yeh, heres a BUMP and hopefully Out will see this thread... Actually Martoch could probably tell ya too since thats who Out was explaining it to last time i think....

JayMan

[Scott Tiger]

Yeah, Martoch is the master photoshopper. I mean, the way he mixed that image of the attractive girl sitting in his lap - dude, that was incredible. I'm truly humbled..

J/K Martoch - I wish you two the best.

BUMP for some assistance..

[darkheart]

Yeah !!! that Pic was really well done She really looked like shes was enjoying his company technology is a wondeerful thing ...lol.

Liked the web site BTW very slushy my girlfriend now hates me thanks to that site.....'why have you not done anything like that for me' she'd say!!!

[RainFire]

Thanks I look forward to getting the info...

[OuTpaTienT]

You mean something along these lines? (as an example):

With background -----> w/o background


For reference see this thread.

I note you mentioned that your source images are "very high quality" and naturally we always want to keep them as such. But that term means an entire range of different things to different people. To me, "very high quality" means a true-color image with minimum 300-dpi resolution and WxH dimensions of 2500 x 2500 pixels or larger and stored in a non-compressed image format (IOW, no JPEGs!)

But that's just me. To some people any image that fills their screen is "high quality". I'll assume you're somewhere in between those two extremes.

Just how critical is this project? If a job, a marriage, a friendship, or a life hangs in the balance of this photo edit, then hire a professional. Surely any one of those four items is worth a few bucks. But if this project of yours is not exactly that vital, and if you're confident in your abilities to tackle this, then "let's go!"

First, go through that thread I linked to (just under the image above) and read & understand the information I'm giving to Martoch. Especially any advice regarding Layer Masks. Layer Masks are the first key to removing any part of an image, be it background, foreground, middleground, whatever. Don't scoff at my instructions to "read the Photoshop help". And although I often am a wise-a$$, this is not the case here. I gave a very specific section of the PS help file that needs to read and hopefully understood before proceeding. Alright?

After that, come back here and pose some more questions about what you need help with. Remember, the more precise and detailed you make the question then the more precise and detailed will be the answer.

Post again as soon as you got a grasp on the layer mask concept. Approx. time it'll take you to comprehend Photoshop's Layer Masking techniques: as little as 5-20 minutes or possibly even a few days or more…somewhere in the that range. Hopefully it won't take ya too long, I'm (and I'm sure others) are eager to help.

uT

[cryptoguy]

I think that in fireworks MX, you can use the Magic Wand tool to cut out a part or the picture, or, a simpler way, convert the image to a bitmap (if it is not already) and use the eraser tool.