Preserved Topic: Perfect masks for cutouts against white background???

Hello,

Here's my dilemna: I do some photography for "glossary" items in books, which end up being normal, everyday items (thermometer, camera, book, people, etc...) against a perfectly white background.

Many times, these are slightly off-white objects against slightly white backgrounds, with some unavoidable shadows from the photography. What's the best way of making a perfect selection to mask the background into a perfect white backdrop (FFFFFF or 255, 255, 255) without the problems of anti-aliasing?

Third party filters? Done by hand on the pixel level? Another method?

Thanks!!!

Here's an example (not mine....just pulled from some random web page)



Only I need it to be perfect!

I think Steve wrote a tutorial for something along those lines over Gurus Network. Why don't ya head over there?

-Jestah
Cell 277

One way is to copy the original, and desautrate it.
Select all>>copy>>paste in a new channel.
Guassian blur slightly, adjust levels. ( pull the sliders towards the middle until you have a nice clean edge)
you can check by clicking on the RGB *eye*con to toggle between the channel and the full color.
Possibly touch it up with the paintbrush, ALT+click the channel to select it.
Back to the original layer, click the layer mask icon. Invert if necessary.

If after all this, you still have a slight halo, select the mask, go FILTERS>>OTHER>>Minimum, set it at 1 px, click OK.





Cell245

Somewhere in the menus is a "remove white matte" option, that you can use after you cut out the image based on the amount of white...

You could also use Photoshop's extraction filter.

Thanks...

Actually....Docilebob...now you need to go the OTHER direction, and turn that image you now have into the first!!!!

That's what I have to do with all of mine...

Scott: Huh ?

Slime : It`s Layer>>matting>>defringe, remove white matte, remove black matte.



Cell245

Scott99999: If I understand you correctly (a better example might have got you the answer more quickly) then Jestah's answer still stands but more specifically Steve's excellent (no worldclass) tutorial here seems to be what you are after:
www.gurusnetwork.com/tutorials/photoshop/replacebg.html

___________________
Emps

FAQs: Emperor

Got it. Thanks.

DocileBob: I was teasing that you inserted a background into the photo. What I normally have to do, over and over, is *remove* the background from the photo. So I was just joking - suggesting you had to now show us your mad skillz to make your image background-free.

Just forget what I just posted...I already know the answer...*kicks self* Man, I'm doing a lot of that lately *sigh*


[This message has been edited by WebShaman (edited 05-31-2002).]

Oh, I get it ---DUH---

That`s funny ,cause the first time I saved it , it was a transparent gif, and you couldn`t tell whether there was a halo, or not..so I threw a bg in so you could see the edges. hehe.

Anyway the channels thing is pretty flexible. ( you also always have the selection, too ) Hope it helped.


Cell245