Removing Complex Backgrounds

Wacom pen tablet, quick mask mode, moderly soft edged brush.

The Spider

"vjg" wrote:

What’s the best way to remove complex backgrounds in Photoshop?

There is no "the best" but whatever you know well, and whatever simplest way you can see. Example if the background is too complex then instead of removing the background you can always *select* the foreground.

Me, I just use Quick Mask but with years of practicing I can handle most situation wuite well, and won’t take me long (as I can pretty much be able to smell the result just by looking at the image).

But if you have lot of background to remove, and don’t have time for practicing then I would suggest 2 plug-ins (pretty expensive for most people). They are "EZ-Mask" and "Fluid Mask"

They both are pretty good tool to separate between back/foreground (or background remover), and you may need both for different work because each has few strong/weak points.

– EZ-Mask seems to handle flying hair better than Fluid-Mask

– Because EZ-Mask use Quick Mask so you can continue the work from Photoshop *after* EZ-Mask done removing background, when Fluid-Mask won’t.

– Fluid Mask is very poor with registration as I read it requires customers to have Internet access to re-activate every few weeks (?) else it will be expired to become DEMO version. I woudn’t recomment this treatment.

And I may suggest to look at the Lynda training DVD called Channels & Mask (they may have both CS2 and CS3?) that you may be able to view some sample online at their site. Few months ago I had the chance to look at few at my nephew place, and they were pretty good. And I would suggest this route which helps you to improve your Photoshop skill rather than using plug-in.

"The Spider Formally Seated Next To Little Miss Muffet" wrote:

Wacom pen tablet, quick mask mode, moderly soft edged brush.
The Spider

That’s what I use and it serves me well. But after lot of practicing.

"vjg" wrote in message

What’s the best way to remove complex backgrounds in Photoshop?

many techniques
I recommend the channels technique described by Russell Brown

"Joel" wrote in message

"The Spider Formally Seated Next To Little Miss Muffet"
wrote:

Wacom pen tablet, quick mask mode, moderly soft edged brush.
The Spider

That’s what I use and it serves me well. But after lot of practicing.

It is far quicker the masking plug-ins out there. By the time you jump through the hoops with Mask Pro or Fluid Mask, etc. you can have it done in Quick Mask mode. The problem with the plug-ins is there is so much adjusting and manual work to do that you just might as well do it all manually.

There are some good books on using Adobe Photoshop own tools for masking. There are several ways of doing this.

The Spider

—
Ignorance really is bliss, just look how happy President Bush is.

and everyone’s going at it the wrong direction. You want to remove the background, you use the magic lasso, and grab what you want from the foreground with it, copy to new layer. hide original, and you’re done cept for touchup removing rough edges.
—
more pix @ http://members.toast.net/cbminfo/index.html

"The Spider Formally Seated Next To Little Miss Muffet" wrote:

"Joel" wrote in message

"The Spider Formally Seated Next To Little Miss Muffet"
wrote:

Wacom pen tablet, quick mask mode, moderly soft edged brush.
The Spider

That’s what I use and it serves me well. But after lot of practicing.

It is far quicker the masking plug-ins out there. By the time you jump through the hoops with Mask Pro or Fluid Mask, etc. you can have it done in Quick Mask mode. The problem with the plug-ins is there is so much adjusting and manual work to do that you just might as well do it all manually.

Unless you know Fluid Mask well enough to back up your statement above <bg> cuz I have tested the demo as well as seeing the video tutorials to know they are good for Photoshop newbie.

I have never tested Mask Pro to know much about it, and the reson I tested others because I read some talks about them.

There are some good books on using Adobe Photoshop own tools for masking. There are several ways of doing this.

See other message that I mentioned about Video Tutorial.

The Spider

The sad thing that the OP has vanished, and if I knew s/he hangs hi,/herself after dropping the question then I wouldn’t care to give information <bg>

"Joel" wrote in message

"The Spider Formally Seated Next To Little Miss Muffet"
wrote:

"Joel" wrote in message

"The Spider Formally Seated Next To Little Miss Muffet"
wrote:

Wacom pen tablet, quick mask mode, moderly soft edged brush.
The Spider

That’s what I use and it serves me well. But after lot of practicing.

It is far quicker the masking plug-ins out there. By the time you jump through the hoops with Mask Pro or Fluid Mask, etc. you can have it done in
Quick Mask mode. The problem with the plug-ins is there is so much adjusting
and manual work to do that you just might as well do it all manually.

Unless you know Fluid Mask well enough to back up your statement above <bg> cuz I have tested the demo as well as seeing the video tutorials to know they are good for Photoshop newbie.

I have never tested Mask Pro to know much about it, and the reson I tested others because I read some talks about them.

There are some good books on using Adobe Photoshop own tools for masking. There are several ways of doing this.

See other message that I mentioned about Video Tutorial.

The Spider

The sad thing that the OP has vanished, and if I knew s/he hangs hi,/herself after dropping the question then I wouldn’t care to give information <bg>

I have spent many hours with it and while it has a lot of power, it still takes 20 times as long to mask out something with it than it does doing it with QuickMask. This of course with complex masking. If you have a person on a plain background Fluid Mask will do it pretty quick, but then so will Photoshop Extract as well as the Magic Wand.

By the time you clean up what Fluid Mask doesn’t get I could have already had it done. For the kind of money they are asking for Fluid Mask it shouldn’t have such a time differential.

If you like it more power to you.

The Spider

—
Ignorance really is bliss, just look how happy President Bush is.

"The Spider Formally Seated Next To Little Miss Muffet" wrote:

<snip>

Wacom pen tablet, quick mask mode, moderly soft edged brush.
The Spider

That’s what I use and it serves me well. But after lot of practicing.

It is far quicker the masking plug-ins out there. By the time you jump through the hoops with Mask Pro or Fluid Mask, etc. you can have it done in
Quick Mask mode. The problem with the plug-ins is there is so much adjusting
and manual work to do that you just might as well do it all manually.

Unless you know Fluid Mask well enough to back up your statement above <bg> cuz I have tested the demo as well as seeing the video tutorials to know they are good for Photoshop newbie.

I have never tested Mask Pro to know much about it, and the reson I tested others because I read some talks about them.

There are some good books on using Adobe Photoshop own tools for masking. There are several ways of doing this.

See other message that I mentioned about Video Tutorial.

The Spider

The sad thing that the OP has vanished, and if I knew s/he hangs hi,/herself after dropping the question then I wouldn’t care to give information <bg>

I have spent many hours with it and while it has a lot of power, it still takes 20 times as long to mask out something with it than it does doing it with QuickMask. This of course with complex masking. If you have a person on a plain background Fluid Mask will do it pretty quick, but then so will Photoshop Extract as well as the Magic Wand.

Unless you are using different "Fluid Mask" or "Photoshop Extract" because Photoshop’s Extract can’t hold candle for the Fluid Mask I tested.

I am pretty good with Quick Mask, but I have to say that most often Fluid Mask and EZ-Mask can do a quicker and better job than Quick Mask. And because I don’t do flying hair, and know quite a few tricks to handle hairy stuff, else I may have to go with either Fluid Mask or EZ-Mask.

By the time you clean up what Fluid Mask doesn’t get I could have already had it done. For the kind of money they are asking for Fluid Mask it shouldn’t have such a time differential.

I am not talking about money (I don’t use neither one), but I am trying to share the information for anyone who can benefit from it.

If you like it more power to you.

The Spider

"The Spider Formally Seated Next To Little Miss Muffet" wrote:

<snip>

Unless you know Fluid Mask well enough to back up your statement above <bg> cuz I have tested the demo as well as seeing the video tutorials to know they are good for Photoshop newbie.

I have never tested Mask Pro to know much about it, and the reson I tested others because I read some talks about them.

There are some good books on using Adobe Photoshop own tools for masking. There are several ways of doing this.

See other message that I mentioned about Video Tutorial.

The Spider

The sad thing that the OP has vanished, and if I knew s/he hangs hi,/herself after dropping the question then I wouldn’t care to give information <bg>

I have spent many hours with it and while it has a lot of power, it still takes 20 times as long to mask out something with it than it does doing it with QuickMask. This of course with complex masking. If you have a person on a plain background Fluid Mask will do it pretty quick, but then so will Photoshop Extract as well as the Magic Wand.

May be you need to improve your skill as even I never used Fluid Mask before but it only took me probably less then 2-3 minutes to get a pretty clean cut out that no way Photoshop Extract can come close.

And I didn’t even use any fancy feature/option but just the Background/Foregound selection with the fine-tuning brush (complex?)

By the time you clean up what Fluid Mask doesn’t get I could have already had it done. For the kind of money they are asking for Fluid Mask it shouldn’t have such a time differential.

As I have mentioned I am passing the information not worshing Photoshop nor talking about $$$

If you like it more power to you.

Thanks and it’s sad because it’s less powerful to you <bg>

The Spider

I briefly researched theWacom pen tablets and from what I found they range from $80 – $460. I’m sure this will give me far more control and flexiblity than the mouse I’m using. Is there one your recommend?

"The Spider Formally Seated Next To Little Miss Muffet" wrote in message

Wacom pen tablet, quick mask mode, moderly soft edged brush.
The Spider

"Joel" wrote in message

"vjg" wrote:

What’s the best way to remove complex backgrounds in Photoshop?

There is no "the best" but whatever you know well, and whatever simplest way you can see. Example if the background is too complex then instead of removing the background you can always *select* the foreground.
Me, I just use Quick Mask but with years of practicing I can handle most situation wuite well, and won’t take me long (as I can pretty much be able to smell the result just by looking at the image).

But if you have lot of background to remove, and don’t have time for practicing then I would suggest 2 plug-ins (pretty expensive for most people). They are "EZ-Mask" and "Fluid Mask"
They both are pretty good tool to separate between back/foreground (or background remover), and you may need both for different work because each has few strong/weak points.

– EZ-Mask seems to handle flying hair better than Fluid-Mask
– Because EZ-Mask use Quick Mask so you can continue the work from Photoshop
*after* EZ-Mask done removing background, when Fluid-Mask won’t.
– Fluid Mask is very poor with registration as I read it requires customers
to have Internet access to re-activate every few weeks (?) else it will be expired to become DEMO version. I woudn’t recomment this treatment.
And I may suggest to look at the Lynda training DVD called Channels & Mask (they may have both CS2 and CS3?) that you may be able to view some sample online at their site. Few months ago I had the chance to look at few at my
nephew place, and they were pretty good. And I would suggest this route which helps you to improve your Photoshop skill rather than using plug-in.

I currently go to www.webdesign.org for Photoshop tutorial. It was there that I learned about Extract in Photoshop. I’m still very new to using that feature and was curious if there was something easier (quicker) especially when it came to pulling out a foreground object like hair from a complex background. I’ll check out lynda.com because my desire is to improve my Photoshop skills. However if I do decide to use a plug-in you sold me on EZ-Mask. I appreciate your advice.

"vjg" wrote:

"Joel" wrote in message

"vjg" wrote:

What’s the best way to remove complex backgrounds in Photoshop?

There is no "the best" but whatever you know well, and whatever simplest way you can see. Example if the background is too complex then instead of removing the background you can always *select* the foreground.
Me, I just use Quick Mask but with years of practicing I can handle most situation wuite well, and won’t take me long (as I can pretty much be able to smell the result just by looking at the image).

But if you have lot of background to remove, and don’t have time for practicing then I would suggest 2 plug-ins (pretty expensive for most people). They are "EZ-Mask" and "Fluid Mask"
They both are pretty good tool to separate between back/foreground (or background remover), and you may need both for different work because each has few strong/weak points.

– EZ-Mask seems to handle flying hair better than Fluid-Mask
– Because EZ-Mask use Quick Mask so you can continue the work from Photoshop
*after* EZ-Mask done removing background, when Fluid-Mask won’t.
– Fluid Mask is very poor with registration as I read it requires customers
to have Internet access to re-activate every few weeks (?) else it will be expired to become DEMO version. I woudn’t recomment this treatment.
And I may suggest to look at the Lynda training DVD called Channels & Mask (they may have both CS2 and CS3?) that you may be able to view some sample online at their site. Few months ago I had the chance to look at few at my
nephew place, and they were pretty good. And I would suggest this route which helps you to improve your Photoshop skill rather than using plug-in.

I currently go to www.webdesign.org for Photoshop tutorial. It was there that I learned about Extract in Photoshop. I’m still very new to using that feature and was curious if there was something easier (quicker) especially when it came to pulling out a foreground object like hair from a complex background. I’ll check out lynda.com because my desire is to improve my Photoshop skills. However if I do decide to use a plug-in you sold me on EZ-Mask. I appreciate your advice.

Whatever you know best will make thing easier, or there is no free *easier* way until you earn yourself by lot of practicing, and the more you know the easier it will be.

Because I have been using the same tricks/methods for many years so it’s hard for me to learn to do other way. But as I mentioned in the previous message (the one you quoted above) that

– Lynda Video Tutorial called Channels & Mask is a very good tutorials which give you very deep detail of using Channels and many different methods for MASKING.

I didn’t have the chance to see all tutorials (not mine) but I saw few I had tried or got stuck at some level that I can’t go any further (years ago when I was first practicing Masking), and the tutorial showed pass the level where I got stuck, or it uses different method that I know but didn’t know how to use with the Masking.

They may have some sample at their web site (?)

– I still suggest to learn without plug-in, because Photoshop is very powerful (almost unlimted features/options) and the less you depend on plug-in the more you will know about Photostop.

This is from my personal experience, because years ago I spent too much time messing with plug-ins. Then one day I asked myself how many years I have Photoshop and how much I know about Photoshop (or too many years but knowing very little about Photoshop), then I decided not to mess with plug-in but invest all my time and energy learning the true Photoshop. And my Photoshop skill has much improved, and also find out I know less about Photoshop than I thought I knew (or it’s become more powerful than I thought).