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General discussion

Removing background

Mar 16, 2004 9:56PM PST

I have scanned a postcard with a picture of a irregular shaped object. I would like to remove the background, leaving only the object, so that when I paste that object unto documents or other pictures, it will not have that unsighty oblong thing covering part of the picture. I have access to Adobe PhotoShop 7, Corel Draw 10 and PaintShop Pro7, but am very new with them. What is the best or correct way to do it ? What other programs are better ? I have tried using the 'magic wand' tool and vaiours attempts at cut and paste and tried making the background 'transparent' but was only able to make the background white. Thanks.

christy

Discussion is locked

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Re:Removing background
Mar 16, 2004 11:08PM PST
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Re:Removing background
Mar 22, 2004 11:04AM PST

Try using lasso.... zoom your image till you can see it pixelated and then make a quick selection of it... copy and paste it on a transparent background. Magic Wand and transparent gifs should work, but I don?t know if you?ve done something wrong... but the lasso or magnetic lasso will work for you

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Re: Removing background
Aug 29, 2004 8:46PM PDT

One way to do it in Photoshop would to open the picture ; then duplicate the image to work on. In the copy, select all, then make a new layer via copy.
On this layer, select your paintbrush tool, select a size for the brush to allow erasing around the image. set your foreground color as black, and in the toolbar by your paintbrush, select the mode as "clear". Then anything you move the brush on will become transparent, so trace around the image you wish to use.Once the image is outlined, you can increase the brush size to easily cover the remaing area you don't want. You can easily see the area you are making transparent by unchecking the "eyeball" on the background layer. Once all the area around the image is transparent, then you can cut the layer you were working on and paste into your new image you open; or save the layer by keeping the background not seen and then flattening the image, then save as either a photoshop file extension to maintain the transparency, or as a tiff file to maintain the transparancy.

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Fantastic!
Dec 30, 2004 8:28AM PST

Beautiful work,Wizard! But you had a beautiful subject to work with! Thanks for the information relative to using the eraser method.

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Re: Removing background
Aug 30, 2004 11:26AM PDT

Read about the Extract feature of Photoshop

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Re: Removing background
Aug 31, 2004 6:54AM PDT

Take a brush, make it white, set it that it's a little blury on the ends, zoom in, draw around the object, make everything white that you don't want, done! Can't get easier then that.

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In photoshop...
Sep 8, 2004 12:41PM PDT

Open the image
duplicate the base layer
work on the duplicate layer
turn off display of the base layer
cut away the portions of the duplicate layer image you don't want to see
select All for the duplicate layer
edit->copy the duplicate layer
file->new
accept all the defaults
edit->paste the copied image
save it as a GIF file
you can then use it in other programs - the background will be transparent

Don't forget to save the original file as a photoshop file in case you want to come back to it.

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To remove object from background
Jan 2, 2005 7:07PM PST

Hi Christy,

Use Photoshop and start selecting with the Poligonal Lazo tool. Expand the graphic by pressing Control +

Take your time and do a neat job. When done selecting, go to Edit > copy, then go to File > New and select the background you want.

Then press Control + A and go to Edit > Paste into.

That should do it.

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removing background
Jan 23, 2005 3:04AM PST

Its all work. A few months back I ran across a filter someone said could be installed and used in photoshop to eliminate white backgrounds and make them transparent. I do not know if that would work for colors. However I wasn't able to get it properly downloaded into photoshop. I have submitted a post to see if someone can help me install it properly. But I can not remember right now where I found it.