Another Way?

[KRPphotography]

I got this image from a client recently to place on a white background and my normal methods of extracting (using select color range or pen tool) seemed cumbersome and I wondered if there was a better way I was missing. How would you go about placing this image on a white background?

[Flashtones]

There's what you could do, and there's what you should do.

You should cut it out with a path, and you can outsource that job to people in Asia for a couple of bucks. Most offer a free trial.

Or you can do it wrong and waste a lot of time with things like color range, saturation masks, or masking plugins. All will leave you with imprecise "organic' edges.

Personally, I outsource my clipping jobs and it's one of the smartest parts of my workflow.

[Flashtones]

Actually, a closer look reveals this item has some pretty organic edges to begin with. I'd still suggest a good, highly detailed clipping path with a pen tool, but barring that, try a trial version of Vertis Fluid mask, or google saturation mask to learn how to make one. Chris Tarantino has a tut somewhere, as does The Lights Right.

I tired a quickie Sat Mask on it with poor results, but that could be because it's so highly compressed and blocky with artifacts. Better results may be had on a quality original.

[TommyO]

With any other piece of jewelery, I would agree that the pen tool is best. But, with this one it just isn't going to offer any real advantage since the edges are composed of thousands of tiny shapes. So, combining several alpha channels may be easier. Selecting will be the easy part; removing all the shadows not so, but doable.

[Flashtones]

Originally Posted by TommyO

With any other piece of jewelery, I would agree that the pen tool is best. But, with this one it just isn't going to offer any real advantage since the edges are composed of thousands of tiny shapes. So, combining several alpha channels may be easier. Selecting will be the easy part; removing all the shadows not so, but doable.

Depends who does the path. Here's a tiny section of a much larger file. I think my guys in India did a pretty good job of tracing the contours of the lanyard. When the thing is knocked down to web size it's perfect.

It's actually embarrassing how little they charged for this too.

[TommyO]

That is pretty impressive. It's that "what's my time worth" thing.... once you develop those overseas contacts, it would be hard not to send it over there. I certainly would not spend the time on it with the pen, unless the background was so close that other selection tools made it impossible without the pen.

[Flashtones]

Originally Posted by TommyO

That is pretty impressive. It's that "what's my time worth" thing.... once you develop those overseas contacts, it would be hard not to send it over there. I certainly would not spend the time on it with the pen, unless the background was so close that other selection tools made it impossible without the pen.

Well said.

Better them than me. ;-)