Selection help

[sonix]

Hi again,

Thanks for all who help me in my previous post.

Now i have another problem which related with cut and paste from MS excel.

I created calendar with white background and the foreground is black. I tried to remove all the white background and left the number only.

What i did is
1. Use magic wand to select white color
2. Select > Similar (so all the white color get selected
3. I un-tick anti-aliased, contiguous and use all layers
4. Press delete

Ok looks good so far which i get what i want, but I when i view the actual pixels I still see some white color exists.. not many but a little..... quite annoying actually.

Is there a way to remove the white background totally?

Thanks guys,
sonix

[Stephen M]

Sonix, try these tips:

* Change the layer blend mode to multiply - white will be treated as transparent while other tones will overprint or mix with the underlying values. Multiply makes colours/tones darker, but with a black and white original white drops out and black is left alone.

* Layer blend if sliders

http://members.ozemail.com.au/~binaryfx/USM_Blend_If.gif

Notice the bottom section of the illustration?

Do similar, but also move the split right hand side of the slider to the left to drop out pure white pixels.

http://www.adobe.com/web/tips/totalphs3/main.html

* Eliminate white plug and their are other versions available with more options from other plug makers...

http://www.edesign.com/filters/

Stephen Marsh.

[sonix]

Hi Stephen, your methods works well on black foreground and white background

but unfortunately i have some other color too like red and orange... they appear to be soft like we reduce the opacity.

I have tried to play around with it but not much luck yet so far.

Any more input for me?

Thanks

[Stephen M]

Please post an example of the pic, I have used blend if and or the eliminate white plugs in addition to layer masks to do this many times. The eliminate white plug is not obvious in its operation and will need explanation it the steps pre and post filtering.


Stephen Marsh.

[sonix]

Here you go.... as you can see the orange and red color after blending is a bit soft...

Thanks again

[Stephen M]

Blend if works well for me, one can even add a layer masked copy of the original over the blend if layer, then paint in the areas that are missing from the blend if layer - thus taking advantage of the ease of blend if for the hard masking and using layer masks for touching up the easier stuff.

Go back to your original method - then go to the layer menu and choose matting/remove white matte, also try defringe and see which you like better.

I personally would still explore blend modes, blend if and layer masks and or the eliminate white plug - but I am still not sure what exactly you are trying to do...there are many ways to remove white.

Stephen Marsh.