Extracting subjects from background

AK
Posted By
A_Kirk
Dec 16, 2007
Views
274
Replies
3
Status
Closed
I’d like to take some family photographs. I have a small set up with some softboxes and several backgrounds.

But, what I’d like to do, is extract the people from the photo, and put them on top of other backgrounds.

I have some experience with using channels in CS2 and CS3. Would a completely white background be best for this kind of "extraction?"

Thanks.

Al
Related Tags
background extract

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JH
John-Pierre_Hannam
Dec 17, 2007
There are a variety of techniques for extracting objects from the background and their applicability depends on the subject and also on your personal preference. You can search this forum for some of these techniques.

However, since you have not taken the family photos yet, you can make things easier on yourself by using a solid color for a background (different than colors in your subjects) that is well-lit and some distance from your subjects if possible (otherwise, your subjects might cast a shadow on the background. Then, you should be able to use the background eraser to eliminate most of the background in one step. You can play with the tolerance settings to fine tune what is deleted. You will still have some cleanup (use the eraser, pen or other techniques) to clean up your images.

Does this help?
AK
A_Kirk
Dec 18, 2007
John, thanks. I have tried this, and it can work for the most part, but sometimes I’ve had trouble with the "hair" and a simple magic eraser method won’t always do the trick. I would end up removing some of those strands of hair that are meshed in there with the background.

I presume that a white background would be best, so I can get the contrast high enough. However, I would like to get as much of the detail as possible.
S
Silkrooster
Dec 19, 2007
If your background is a solid color and is not part of your subjects, then you may want to try select>color range.
Silk

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