gemgem

Hi all my name is Gemma I am new here.
I live in New Zealand and I am a Soapmaker by trade.
Anyway
I need some help in Photoshop 5 with Selecting using the magic wand and lasso
I want to totally remove the background from my photo but evrytime i use the Magic wand it leaves pixels behind not a clear cut.
I realy have no idea what i am doing but id intend to master it. Would love some advice and help.
thanks
have a great day
gemma

MsOz

Hi Gemma!

Well, like ANY tool, you need to learn how to use it.
Your best bet is to start with your User Manual. If you look in the back in the Index, you'll find where the section explaining the Magic wand is in the Manual.
You can also do some web searches using the words Photoshop Magic Wand Tool, and be directed to some very informative links that will explain how it works, and how to use it.

You can also do a search for Photoshop remove background tutorial for some step-by-step instructions.

Enjoy learning!

gemgem

Thanks for the advice, i have been searching for a free tutorial online that i can understand for photoshop6..will keep searching..
thanks
Gemma

MsOz

Hope you find what you need!

Bacardi

In fact it is very exceptional for the magic wand or lasso tools to do anything perfectly.
What you have to understand is what a selection is, and what a mask.

Pictures on computers are chopped up into units called pixels so that yopu get a kind of mosaic. That way, the puter can remember the colour of each pixel and its place. When these pixels are small enough, the brain is fooled into "seeing" your pic where in fact there are only small coloured dots.

Now when you want to do something with some pixels, and not with some others, you have to tell photoshop which must be changed and which not. When you "say" you want to do something with a certain amaount of pixels, people say that these pixels are selected.
You have many tools at your disposal to do this, but none is really perfect. You can change their sensitivity, but you will always have some pixles that *should* be selected, and some that should *not* be selected.

In come masks. When you want to paint your door, you will use adeshive tape to protect the areas you don't want to apply paint to. This technique is called "masking".

When you save a selection, photoshop saves it as a mask. Infact: both are eachother's opposites: on one hand you have the selected pixels, on the other hand you have the masked ones, which are the ones you do not wish to change.

Now I never had PS5, so I suggest you first take a look at your selection menu to see whether there is a "save selection" command, and also whether on your toolbox you have these two icons shwon in red on the image (quick mask). Also that you take a look in your help file to see whether there is some explanation on what I wrote about.

Then come back, post what you found, and perhaps someone who has used PS5 can help you better that I.

The intention is that you change to a mask and paint away the pixles you don't want to be selected, and paint in the pixels you want to add to the selection.

good luck, and hope to read you soon!
[righton]

gemgem

thanks for that reply, i have been sooo busy and only just got back here today.
I will do all the things you said you said in the next day or two and let you know..
I am specifically trying to take make photos of something have a totally transparent background so the stand alone without a fuzzy edge or left over pixels?? does that make sense to you?
many thanx
Gemma

retired_paddza

Yup. Lots of practice. Sorry we don't have a specific magic answer for you (that "magic" wand is misleading isn't it? hehe). Knocking out backgrounds are one of those things that are very common and also very troublesome at times. Listen to the advice you've been given so far here, learning to use the tools as well as learning how photoshop actually does what it does are going to be the stongest way of learning. I always suggest using simple images to learn on so you know if you got it right. It's easier to extract flat objects from simple backgrounds than complex ones from complex backgrounds. That sounds obvious, but lots of people start trying to learn to do good extractions with some photo of their girlfriend at the beach with their hair all flying in the wind in front of some complex menagerie of people and beach umbrellas. This is about the worst place to start learning about photoshop extractions. Start with a picture of a coffee mug on a plain colored background! Learn the tools... learn the many differet ways to do extractions (more in a minute on that) and then when you're comfortable with the tools you'll have a much easier time tackling the hard stuff.

Good techniques to become familiar with and research on extractions:

Selections - these are the primary tool that most people start with and the basis for separating different sections of your image. You can build selections directly with man different tools (magic wand, lasso, marquees, etc.). Good techniques here are learning to add, subtract, and difference your selections by using the different modifier keys. e.g. Holding the shift key will allow you to add your current selection tool to the already existing selection.

Masking - My personal favorite. This allows you to separate things by making them invisible but not destroying them. i.e. You can make something have a transparent background, but if you decide later that you want the background you can just turn off the mask because all you did was make part of the image invisible, not delete it. Masks are also great because they let your paint out the areas that you want to hide or show. Learning about layer masks will immediately double the amount of productivity you get out of photoshop.

Extract tool (PS 6+ only) - Never liked this tool, but some people love it. It allows you to paint out places on your image to define the edge of an object then the computer semi-automatically builds the selection and extracts the image. I found it to be too slow and ham-handed for my tastes, but a lot of people make it work wonders.

Paths - Smooth surfaces, sloping curves, straight edges, and large complex shapes are the best friend of the bezier path. Learning to use the pen tool is a must for making that quantum leap into photoshop and graphics in general. There are some great basic path tutorials out there for the searching (I like the ones at www.gurusnetwork.com). Once you've made a closed path with the pen tool, you can convert that shape into a selection, make a mask directly, or many other ineteresting things. Paths are infinitely scalable and editable, so if you need to fine tune something, you can always go back and make a minor tweak without the need to start over.

Combining methods - Here is where you really start to get diverse with photoshop using things like duplicated alpha channels or bouncing between selection tools and the quick mask to gradually build up a selection that is more and more accurate. This is where you want to get to eventually. Once you know how to use all the basic tools, there are some really useful ways to combine them so that they are even more powerful by relying on only the strengths of each tool.

Hopefully that gives you some places to start looking. Do lots of research and practice. If you get stuck on a specific problem, post some specific questions here and I'm sure someone can help you.

Good luck and welcome.

Welles

Hi Gemma,

Here is an eleven part online tutorial entitled Harnessing the Power of Photoshop Selections which will answer all your questions and more. It is a sample chapter from Gary Bouton's "inside Photosop 7" and will extend your understanding of Photoshop immensely!

http://www.informit.com/articles/art...31732&seqNum=1

PS Gary is a participant here and has created the board entitled "The Inside Track."