masterdine

I have a picture of the earth that I wanted to extract to a transparent layer so that I could use it later. I used the extract filter and saved it as a gif. The resultant pic has jaggies and I really needed it to be smoother. Can anyone give me some tips on how to extract this round figure. I have attached a link to the original picture.

Thanks

http://beedyb220.freewebspace.com/earth.jpg

aironite

Hi Beedyb. Nice snap of the blue marble, there.

If the original image was 72dpi, I'd resample it to 150. That would minimize the zagginess.

Since you've got an almost round object there, I'd use the elliptical marquee tool. Make sure you've checked the anti-alais box. Click and drag from the upper corners of the rulers and line up the guides from the cross hairs to the very edges of the earth. Release but don't move it as you do.

Click and drag as you would to select an object. Line up the ellipse around the earth. CTRL+SHIFT+I to inverse and delete BG.

Don't worry if there's a tiniest bit of BG. You can use LAYER>MATTING>DEFRINGE to remedy that. OR... select the entire image by CTRL+click earth layer, go to SELECT>FEATHER with a seting of 3, Inverse and delete the unwanted BG bits.

You can also blur the edges a bit with the blur tool set with a strength of 30.

I don't usually save these images in GIF. I'd save it as a psd or layered tif.

I've included a pix of your earth pasted on a PS space BG using the procedures mentioned.

Hope this helps.

vee

masterdine

Thanks... How do I go about deleting the BG??? I tried hitting the DEL button on my keyboard to no avail...are you referring to the BACKSPACE key???

aironite

I forgot to mention to duplicate the image on a new layer and deleting the contents of the first layer. This will enable you to delete the BG on the new layer.

I think this is why you can't delete. (Delete key)

vee

masterdine

Thanks alot for your help....