Getting rid of background around an image

A
Posted By
AlvElvestad
Nov 12, 2003
Views
168
Replies
8
Status
Closed
I am using Elements 1.0. Producing a picture of an object (in this case a boat) on a white background is not as easy as it seems. Since I do not have a white sheet that is large enough, I took a picture of the boat in my driveway, traced the outline of the boat with a lasso tool, inverted the selection and pressed delete. This appeared to have the desired effect. On my monitor the driveway disappeared. I saved the picture to a CD and took it to WalMart to run my prints. But on WalMart’s machine the picture came up with the driveway still in place.

So I went back to Potoshop Elements, loaded my picture (that is still not showing a driveway on my machine), selecting the Magic Wand, clicked on the white area, went to Edit/Fill and ok. I set both foreground and background to white and resaved the image to a CD. And the WalMart photographic print machine still came up with the driveway in tact.

Next try. I created an all-white image, cut the boat from my previously edited picture, and pasted it onto the all-white page. Then saved the image to another CD and headed to WalMart pretty sure I had the problem licked. But the WalMart machine is a lot smarter than I am. The driveway is still there. Just to make sure, I went across the street to CVS and tried their machine. But for once, the two were in complete agreement. The triveway is still there.

How can I erase part of a picture in such a way that the image file will no longer contain data for the erased area?

AlvElvestad
Related Tags
background image

How to Master Sharpening in Photoshop

Give your photos a professional finish with sharpening in Photoshop. Learn to enhance details, create contrast, and prepare your images for print, web, and social media.

MM
Mac_McDougald
Nov 12, 2003
Sounds like you are getting files mixed up or somesuch.

If your image is flattened, and you see no driveway, then there won’t BE a driveway, regardless of file format.

What format are you saving in? If not JPEG, make sure image is flattened,as their imaging software may not support layers if you are using TIFF/PSD.

Mac
JF
Jodi_Frye
Nov 12, 2003
wondering, does Wallmart print merged PSD files ???
MM
Mac_McDougald
Nov 12, 2003
I asked once when they first fired up the service.
I seem to remember they said JPEG/TIFF only, but that was a while ago, and I’ve never actually used their service.

Mac
NS
Nancy_S
Nov 12, 2003
Alv,

Sure does sound mysterious…you are working with the image in Mode>RGB, right? You are not using this on a network, right? When you use your browser to locate the file on your disk, right click it and choose Properties, the "Read Only" attribute isn’t checked, right? When you first open a file, do you double click in the Layers Palette to turn the "Background" designation to a regular layer (the default response is to change it to Layer 0)? What format are you saving these files in? If they are jpg, of course the finished product would only have one layer, but others…If you have more than one layer, does one of your layers in the Layers Palette have the "eye" not showing, which would mean it is invisible to you?
SJ
S_Jolly
Nov 13, 2003
You’re all brilliant! Now I know how to do this. Thank you so much. Sara
A
AlvElvestad
Nov 13, 2003
The image is saved as a jpg. I just loaded it from a CD I had taken to WalMart, and the file extension is .jpg so no mistake there. Someone suggested flattening the image, but that option was not available – so already as flat as it was going to get. On my computer the boat appears on a nice white background (the image from the CD). On WalMart’s machine the driveway shows. Somehow, the image file includes both the white background and the original one. This is the one where I started with a white-only image and added just the boat part of the original image with cut and paste. This is driving me nuts!

Alv
MM
Mac_McDougald
Nov 13, 2003
You simply must have the wrong files burned to CD, or the additional one is there also for Wally World to find. Or something like this.

A JPEG doesn’t have layers or "hidden" elements.

Want to email me the file in question, just for a looksee? doogleATdoogleDOTcom

Mac
KW
Kyle_White
Nov 13, 2003
Ah, question for Alv?

Did you burn the second and subsequent images on the same CD?

What may be happening is that WalMart, et al, are only seeing the first session on the CD, and not anything that has been added/changed since. You may wish to try burning the desired JPEG onto a new CD-R or a freshly erased CD-RW. CD’s can be weird that way, especially if moving between operating systems.

Just an idea.

Kyle

Must-have mockup pack for every graphic designer 🔥🔥🔥

Easy-to-use drag-n-drop Photoshop scene creator with more than 2800 items.

Related Discussion Topics

Nice and short text about related topics in discussion sections