Is it hard work to cut part of a pic from the background in Photoshop?

[ok_cpu]

[begin_within]

1. No

[ok_cpu]

2. Like "so super easy I'd do it for a complete stranger" easy?

[begin_within]

4. well what is the picture?

[InvisibleTouch]

3. Depends on how contrasting the background is.

If there's a sharp contrast, it's super-easy. If there's less of a contrast, it can be a bit of a pain, but I certainly wouldn't call it "hard work."

[ok_cpu]

7. Lemme ask you this

I have Ulead Photo Impact. Trying to separate a professional portrait from the background. The wizard tool won't grab the portrait so I'll have to hand select it then go in and erase each extra pixel. Do you know anything about Ulead to be able to say whether

1)Ulead sucks and Photoshop could do it in a snap

or

2)There's not enough contrast and I'm screwn.

[begin_within]

9. Have you tried using the wizard tool to grab the background?

[ok_cpu]

11. Yeah. Doesn't work either.

It has to be the contrast. I'm wearing a gray-blue'ish suit and the background is mostly shades of gray. I'll have to do it by hand.

Thanks for the help everyone.

:hi:

[begin_within]

12. You might be able to look at a single color channel,

if it is in RGB mode, look at each of the color channels individually (probably the blue one). That might show a stronger contrast between the gray and the gray-blue. You can then use the magic wand tool (what it's called in Photoshop) to pick up those areas only. Even though you are using one channel to make the selection, you then go back to the RGB composite view to make the selection apply to all channels, not just the blue one. Alternatively, you might try selecting part of the background and then give the Select->Similar command. That might pick up everything that is the same color as the background.

[InvisibleTouch]

10. Sorry, I don't know anything about Ulead...

...so I don't know what kind of sensitivity it has, but in Photoshop you can set the "tolerance" to various percentages, so you can select for greater or lesser contrast. Careful, though - if you set it too high, it will select areas inside your image that you don't want to remove.

Photoshop also has a nice mask tool that helps a bit in cutting away a non-contrasting background - but in the end you may have to clean up the edge "by hand" either way.

The absolute best book I know on Photoshop, which will talk you through all these techniques, is The Complete Idiot's Guide to Adobe Photoshop.

Hope that helps a bit!

[Deja Q]

13. Nova Development licenses Photoimpact and sells it under their own name...

Costs a bit less too.

Nova's latest version is 11.

Mostly Vista compatible, it does 95% of what Photoshop 7 does and is quite competent.

I eventually bought Photoshop CS2 as it's got a bit more oompf, but PhotoImpact (Ulead or Nova) is a very competent competitor that should have Adobe becoming incontinent if they knew that competition does exist... especially that Adobe ditched a 64-bit version of CS3, I have to wonder how long before a competitor (e.g. Photoimpact) outdoes them for both amateur and pro fields...)

[BlooInBloo]

5. If you're on a windows machine, paint.net will do 95% of what Photoshop will do...

... with about 5% of the complexity. Just fyi.

[Deja Q]

6. If you want to make it look as real as possible, it can be tedious...

But 'hard' to cut out the part you want? Not particularly. Still, tedious should be said for something...

[grace0418]

8. Depends on the background and the edges. If it's a person with a fuzzy sweater

and lots of hair holding a cat, it's going to be more difficult to cut out than a white ball in front of a black curtain.