I have been on a search ever since I left Photoshop 5 behind to find a version of the Remove White plugin that actually works.

This plugin worked with PaintShop Pro and PhotoShop and was the absolutely best tool to remove a white background from a picture. It is like sliding the emulsion off a print and over on a glass plate. You have to try it to actually get the feel for what it is doing. It is not possible to get even close by selecting with similar colors or any other masking technique.

I never found anything that worked until a few days ago when I stumbled upon the solution. I wrote a blog post on http://www.wisnaes.com/ to describe the process of getting the original plugin to work with Photoshop CS2. You can comment here or at the blog.

I have tried to get in touch with the original author of the plugin, but no luck so far. If anyone know an updated e-mail, please send me a pm here. The e-mail I found did not work.

The really wonderful thing with this plugin is to be able to lift soft shadows off a white background. Also lifting a signature off a white background so you can add it to your pictures becomes a breeze.

Happy removing!

Many moons ago someone asked about it in these parts. As an exercise, I wrote one for PC/Win using Filter Meister.

Transparent Shades (http://tech-slop.serveit.org/wiki/index.php?title=Transparent_Shades)

Wow that is going back I can remeber using remove white many moons ago.

Stroker

Anyway you can create a Mac version of Transparent SHades?

Chris

Alas, I can't do Mac. However, you should be able to make yourself an Action to do the exact same thing. Mimicing Remove White or Transparent Shades with stock tools is rather easy.

- have your thing on one layer
- copy it to a new layer
- Edit > Fill
--- Use: White, Black, or 50% Gray
--- Mode: Saturation
- in the Channels palette, copy it to new alpha channel
- Invert it
- load it and apply as a layer mask

Of course, the desaturating step(s) to get an alpha for layer mask are widely open to taste. Could very well use Image > Adjust > Desaturate for a mask. Or Channel Mixer.

All you are really doing is desaturating and using the resulting greyscale as a layer mask. That's it in a nutshell. And, you know, various things to taste.

I know it's not a Mac filter, but might keep you happy for a bit. After all, doing these things to fit your flow is uber good. Personally, I never use Transparent Shades. I would just as soon home brew the individual steps.

Often I can get away with Blend If in the Styles palette. Much depends on the graphic. One trick I have learned is to put a blank layer below the layer you are going to use Blend If on to knock out black or white. Do the Blend If thing then merge that layer down into the transparent blank layer below. This retains the transparency and the layer is "workable"

In the sample below, I knocked out the white sky. No selection used, just a very small Blend If. Merged down and you can now see the transparent area which can set as a mask or drop a new sky in behind it.

Hey, thats a cool trick Swampy!

Hi Oceanwatcher,

Not sure if this is what you are looking for ..... http://www.pspug.org/filters/filtersff.shtml ..... scroll down to where it says Mark McLaren and check out that filter. It is a PSP filter, but may well work with PS.

You could also check out the free filters at Free Photoshop-compatible Plugins.

http://www.thepluginsite.com/resources/freeps.htm

Ah, Blend If. Don't forget you can split the sliders by holding Alt and click dragging. Something like that.

Blend If and I have a bit of a strange relationship. Sometimes it does things kind of wrong. Rather, it doesn't quite work the way I think it should for some uses. I think the problem that I run into on occassion with Blend If is a matter of order of operations. Maybe some day I'll sort it out and have a better working relationship with Blend If. I do use it, but sometimes I shy away from it. I don't know.

Stroker,

There is something odd about Blend If. When you do it, you can't load a selection from it by just Command/Control clicking on the layer thumbnail in order to generate a selection to make a mask. It must be because the Blend If is tied to that layer in some way that makes it impossible to manipulate further. I just happend to discover that by merging the BI layer down into a blank transparent layer things corrected themselves and I could then load the selection.

Much depends on the graphic, but the Blend If can create the basis for a pretty good mask. Assuming you are working on a duplicate of the original layer, do the BI then merge it down into a transparent layer, then load the slection from the merged result you can then apply the selection as a mask to the original. Many times it is easy from there to edit the mask to replace any highlight areas that may have gotten blown out by the gross BI process with levels or paint with a white brush.

1. In the sample below, I first duplicated the Background and added a transparent layer below the dupe. Ran the Blend If on the dupe then merged down. You can see the resulting mask where some of the lower areas were also affected by the BI. But this is okay since my main concern is the sky. It's easy enough to fix the "gross" areas of the mask with a white brush.

2. I dropped the sky in, but saw that the skyline and the church spire needed some touch up. So those were the areas I concentrated on. Fixed the spire with a small 100% white brush, reduced opacity and just scribbled some white along the horizon line of buildings to bring up more of their detail.

3. Put a gradient mask on the sky and ran a pretty big gaussian blur so the transition would be softer.

Whole thing took about 5 minutes and I never had to make a detailed selection.

A bit out of my comfort zone here :wink: but just wanted to add there is a download here headed transparency filters

http://www.trimoon.com/html/downloads.html


Palms

Thanks, Palms... Not for Mac, but PC users may find it handy.

Hi Oceanwatcher,

Not sure if this is what you are looking for .....

Actually, I am not looking anymore. For me, this is the final solution (I hope you read the article on my page :-) ). I just wish I had found an E-mail to the author.

Anyway - make sure you read the full article.

Stroker,

There is something odd about Blend If. When you do it, you can't load a selection from it by just Command/Control clicking on the layer thumbnail in order to generate a selection to make a mask. It must be because the Blend If is tied to that layer in some way that makes it impossible to manipulate further. I just happend to discover that by merging the BI layer down into a blank transparent layer things corrected themselves and I could then load the selection.

Much depends on the graphic, but the Blend If can create the basis for a pretty good mask. Assuming you are working on a duplicate of the original layer, do the BI then merge it down into a transparent layer, then load the slection from the merged result you can then apply the selection as a mask to the original. Many times it is easy from there to edit the mask to replace any highlight areas that may have gotten blown out by the gross BI process with levels or paint with a white brush.

1. In the sample below, I first duplicated the Background and added a transparent layer below the dupe. Ran the Blend If on the dupe then merged down. You can see the resulting mask where some of the lower areas were also affected by the BI. But this is okay since my main concern is the sky. It's easy enough to fix the "gross" areas of the mask with a white brush.

2. I dropped the sky in, but saw that the skyline and the church spire needed some touch up. So those were the areas I concentrated on. Fixed the spire with a small 100% white brush, reduced opacity and just scribbled some white along the horizon line of buildings to bring up more of their detail.

3. Put a gradient mask on the sky and ran a pretty big gaussian blur so the transition would be softer.

Whole thing took about 5 minutes and I never had to make a detailed selection.

Hi everyone, great trick the “Blend If”. I use to do the white extract using just channels and curves but BI is another good way.

About the something odd with Blend If when trying to load a selection, I think, it is because styles affects the entire contents of the layer but they don´t really change the pixels in the layer.

That is, as the layer to which apply "Blend If" is completely filled pixels (as is the case with the image of the church, there aren´t any transparent pixels at the beginning) no matter what effect has been applied to the styles, the load selection will always be the whole layer while the layer hasn´t been rasterized and the effects become actual pixels in the layer.

I do not know if I explained. My english is not too good.

Rhasval, that goes a long way toward explaining why you can't make a selection from the BI layer. Merging it down into a transparent layer turns it into an "unstyled" layer.

You can merge with a blank layer underneath - this renders the transparent pixels in a blend-if layer to transparency - it also takes the the blend-if sliders to their default.

You can merge with a blank layer underneath - this renders the transparent pixels in a blend-if layer to transparency - it also takes the the blend-if sliders to their default.

After merging down, it doesn't matter if the sliders are reset. After merging down, I load the selection and apply it as a mask to another duplicate of the original. Then delete the merged BI layer.

Swampy

Its odd that you are unable to pick the transparent pixels after doing your blend-If.

I just tried and had success using the magic wand to select transparent or using command-tlde and selecting just the results of that selection with the magic wand or saving it as a channel and selecting the areas needed.

Chris

Chris, if you are going to use the magic wand tool to select transparent, why not just use it to select whites to start with? It kind of defeats the purpose of Blend if which gives you much more control in the amount of selection.

Then what do you do when you have very complex selections such as palm fronds, or detail in trees? Especially when the luminacity of the white area varies from one area to the next?

Just easier for me to do the blend if, Command/Control E to merge to the transparent layer, Command/Control click on the merged layer to reload as a selection, go to a copy layer below and click the mask button then refine the mask if necessary.

Because with the magic wand used on the transparency you are getting a more accurate mask than when used on the white. You should get the same if not extremely close to the selection when doing your layer merge.

Only mentioned it because you had earlier said you could not get a selection from the layer by command clicking on it. This would give you the same as if you did.

"There is something odd about Blend If. When you do it, you can't load a selection from it by just Command/Control clicking on the layer thumbnail in order to generate a selection to make a mask. It must be because the Blend If is tied to that layer in some way that makes it impossible to manipulate further. I just happend to discover that by merging the BI layer down into a blank transparent layer things corrected themselves and I could then load the selection."



Chris

Stroker

Anyway you can create a Mac version of Transparent SHades?

Chris



Chris (and other Mac users,)

Have you tried Bergdesign Inc's Peel Off White? It's Mac-specific and seems to produce similar if not identical results to Transparent Shades.

http://bergdesign.com/plugins/

I hope this is helpful. And no disrespect to Stroker's work whatsoever.

Thanks for the info Rydiant.
Greatly appreciated.

Chris

Rydiant! Thanks for the link...

I have downloaded the plugins and find them "iffy". I only spent a few minutes playing, but can see this plug in needs work.

The Peel off white works, but goes way too far and requires too much retouching of the mask.

The other two both crash CS3 on my PPC G5 Mac.

You're very welcome, Chris. That suggestion is just a crumb next to all the wisdom I've gleaned from your posts here.

And Swampy, sorry to hear about the crashes! The plug ins are basic. Maybe you'll find a later versions more useful.