Extracting portions of an image

[tangomike]

Understood, Sepiana, thanks for the clarification.

[tangomike]

Update:

I may not be able to get this done well enough to keep trying. These images reflect the latest attempt, and I can't find a way to improve it. I didn't intend to put the results of two refine edge trials together, but both have something to recommend them, and any attempt to improve either one has been very frustrating.

Three screenshots show: With both layers with layer masks visible: with the bottom, and with the top.

[Sepiana]

Jun 11, 2024 18:15:07 GMT tangomike said:

Update:

I may not be able to get this done well enough to keep trying. These images reflect the latest attempt, and I can't find a way to improve it.

tangomike,

The 3rd image, the one shown in the bottom screenshot, shows quite an improvement in your selection efforts. If you want to keep trying, I would recommend working on that one. 

You can tackle those tan-colored areas along the edges of the horse's mane by using Refine Edge.

1. Edge Detection > Adjust the Radius slider. (Keep Smart Radius turned off.)
2. Refine the edges of the horse’s mane by using the Refine Radial Tool (E).
3. Output > Turn on Decontaminate Colors. (This will remove color fringe from the selection.)

After you place your selection on the new background, if you still see some of those tan-colored areas, try this.

1. Select the area with the Magic Wand Tool. (Make sure that the Contiguous setting is turned on.)
2. If you select too much, subtract from the selection.
3. Once you are satisfied with the selection, press the Delete key.

BTW, you can also remove that little green area under the horse’s neck by using the Magic Wand Tool.

Hope this helps!

[hmca]

tangomike , if after trying Sepiana's suggestion above you are still not happy with your results, you may want to follow through on Chris' suggestion:

Jun 10, 2024 14:57:46 GMT Chris said:

 If you wish to give us permission to download the image and the background, we can experiment using various methods to show what is possible.

To do this you would need to add the original horse picture and the background you would like to use to the Member-to-Member help board.

It is often hard to make suggestions as to what you think would work without trying them out on the pictures first.

[tangomike]

Sepiana:

Thanks so much for sticking with me! I've tried to follow your suggestions, but I don't think I'm doing the steps correctly.

You can tackle those tan-colored areas along the edges of the horse's mane by using Refine Edge. (Don't understand what you mean by tan areas. The areas I want to remove are the gray ones shown in the screenshot below.)

1. Edge Detection > Adjust the Radius slider. (Keep Smart Radius turned off.) (Have no idea where to put this. Can't see the effect.)
2. Refine the edges of the horse’s mane by using the Refine Radial Tool (E). (Don't know which tool this is.)
3. Output > Turn on Decontaminate Colors. (This will remove color fringe from the selection.) (Did this. Can't see the effect.)

After you place your selection on the new background, if you still see some of those tan-colored areas, try this.

1. Select the area with the Magic Wand Tool. (Make sure that the Contiguous setting is turned on.) The selection is very hard to control, never been able to select any of the gray remnants.)
2. If you select too much, subtract from the selection.
3. Once you are satisfied with the selection, press the Delete key.

BTW, you can also remove that little green area under the horse’s neck by using the Magic Wand Tool. (The first trial I did this with the polygonal lasso. Every subsequent attempt I kept getting a pop up message that no pixels were selected.)

Does it make any difference if is I select the image or the layer mask when trying these tools?

Thanks again!!

[Sepiana]

Jun 12, 2024 3:54:15 GMT tangomike said:

Sepiana:

Thanks so much for sticking with me! I've tried to follow your suggestions, but I don't think I'm doing the steps correctly.

tangomike, let's go over the steps.

You can tackle those tan-colored areas along the edges of the horse's mane by using Refine Edge.
(Don't understand what you mean by tan areas. The areas I want to remove are the gray ones.

My sincere apologies! I was using a different monitor (instead of my usual one). Those areas looked light-tan colored. Let's get on the same wavelength -- the gray areas.

1. Edge Detection > Adjust the Radius slider. (Keep Smart Radius turned off.)
    Have no idea where to put this. Can't see the effect.)

Adjust the Radius slider to the right. As you do it, you will see the gray areas starting to reduce in size.

2. Refine the edges of the horse's mane by using the Refine Radial Tool (E).
   (Don't know which tool this is.)

It's this brush. 

3. Output > Turn on Decontaminate Colors. (This will remove color fringe from the selection.)
    (Did this. Can't see the effect.)

The default is 50%. If you don't see any changes in color fringe, you need to adjust the Amount, increase the %.

1. Select the area with the Magic Wand Tool. (Make sure that the Contiguous setting is turned on.)
2. If you select too much, subtract from the selection.
3. Once you are satisfied with the selection, press the Delete key.

BTW, you can also remove that little green area under the horse’s neck by using the Magic Wand Tool.

The selection is very hard to control, never been able to select any of the gray remnants.)
(The first trial I did this with the polygonal lasso. Every subsequent attempt I kept getting a pop up message that no pixels were selected.)
Does it make any difference if is I select the image or the layer mask when trying these tools?

- The key to success is to zoom in the gray area to be deleted.
- I would not use the Polygonal Lasso. Use the Magic Wand. (You could also use the Quick Selection Tool.)
- When this error message pops up, it is either because the wrong layer is activated or the area to be deleted is not selected.
- Just make sure you have the right layer activated -- horse image + layer mask.

This Adobe document explains the settings and tools in the Refine Edge dialog. Hope it helps!

Make selections in Photoshop Elements (Scroll down the page to Refine edges of a selection.)

[Chris]

Tangomike, another thing you could try is to use a slightly negative value in the, "shift edge" in the refine edge dialogue.




If it was my image, I would use a layer mask and a black brush with 20% transparency to fade out the grey areas using many light strokes in the direction parallel the hair.

It may be impossible to select every hair to perfection. I suggest you aim for a realistic and convincing selection. Once you change the background you may find that a tiny amount of grey doesn't show at all, or can easily be touched up.

Kind regards
Chris

[Lillias]

Tangomike I hope you don't mind but I took the liberty of trying to extract the horse using the Selection and Refine Edge tools in both PSE and Affinity Photo.
I find on occasion that the result can be much better in Affinity Photo and I found that to be the case with this photo.
Once extracted I placed it on a new background obtained from Pixabay.

As I am not allowed to show the result here in this board of the forum I am sending you a PM with my results and welcome any comments you may want to make.

[tangomike]

Jun 12, 2024 5:47:59 GMT Sepiana said:

Jun 12, 2024 3:54:15 GMT tangomike said:

Sepiana:

Thanks so much for sticking with me! I've tried to follow your suggestions, but I don't think I'm doing the steps correctly.

tangomike, let's go over the steps.

You can tackle those tan-colored areas along the edges of the horse's mane by using Refine Edge.
(Don't understand what you mean by tan areas. The areas I want to remove are the gray ones.

My sincere apologies! I was using a different monitor (instead of my usual one). Those areas looked light-tan colored. Let's get on the same wavelength -- the gray areas.

1. Edge Detection > Adjust the Radius slider. (Keep Smart Radius turned off.)
    Have no idea where to put this. Can't see the effect.)

Adjust the Radius slider to the right. As you do it, you will see the gray areas starting to reduce in size.

2. Refine the edges of the horse's mane by using the Refine Radial Tool (E).
   (Don't know which tool this is.)

It's this brush. 

3. Output > Turn on Decontaminate Colors. (This will remove color fringe from the selection.)
    (Did this. Can't see the effect.)

The default is 50%. If you don't see any changes in color fringe, you need to adjust the Amount, increase the %.

1. Select the area with the Magic Wand Tool. (Make sure that the Contiguous setting is turned on.)
2. If you select too much, subtract from the selection.
3. Once you are satisfied with the selection, press the Delete key.

BTW, you can also remove that little green area under the horse’s neck by using the Magic Wand Tool.

The selection is very hard to control, never been able to select any of the gray remnants.)
(The first trial I did this with the polygonal lasso. Every subsequent attempt I kept getting a pop up message that no pixels were selected.)
Does it make any difference if is I select the image or the layer mask when trying these tools?

- The key to success is to zoom in the gray area to be deleted.
- I would not use the Polygonal Lasso. Use the Magic Wand. (You could also use the Quick Selection Tool.)
- When this error message pops up, it is either because the wrong layer is activated or the area to be deleted is not selected.
- Just make sure you have the right layer activated -- horse image + layer mask.

This Adobe document explains the settings and tools in the Refine Edge dialog. Hope it helps!

Make selections in Photoshop Elements (Scroll down the page to Refine edges of a selection.)

Sepiana,

The zoom in suggestion helped, but I never saw any change in the radius until I selected Show Radius. The screenshot shows what the radius is with 20.7 selected.

This view also allowed me to see the effect of decontaminate colors.

But I still don't understand how to eliminate the gray areas. With the Refine edge open, I can't activate the Magic Wand or Quick Selection Tool.

I'm going to check out the link you included to the help file.

And for the record, I appreciate the explanation about my confusion about gray vs. tan, but you NEVER owe me an apology.

[tangomike]

Jun 11, 2024 23:04:32 GMT hmca said:

tangomike , if after trying Sepiana's suggestion above you are still not happy with your results, you may want to follow through on Chris' suggestion:

Jun 10, 2024 14:57:46 GMT Chris said:

 If you wish to give us permission to download the image and the background, we can experiment using various methods to show what is possible.

To do this you would need to add the original horse picture and the background you would like to use to the Member-to-Member help board.

It is often hard to make suggestions as to what you think would work without trying them out on the pictures first.

Thank you for the suggestion!

[tangomike]

Jun 12, 2024 11:22:53 GMT Chris said:

Tangomike, another thing you could try is to use a slightly negative value in the, "shift edge" in the refine edge dialogue.




If it was my image, I would use a layer mask and a black brush with 20% transparency to fade out the grey areas using many light strokes in the direction parallel the hair.

It may be impossible to select every hair to perfection. I suggest you aim for a realistic and convincing selection. Once you change the background you may find that a tiny amount of grey doesn't show at all, or can easily be touched up.

Kind regards
Chris

Thank you, Chris. I really appreciate the kind assistance.

[Sepiana]

Jun 12, 2024 12:52:33 GMT tangomike said:

Sepiana,

The zoom in suggestion helped, but I never saw any change in the radius until I selected Show Radius. The screenshot shows what the radius is with 20.7 selected.



This view also allowed me to see the effect of decontaminate colors.

But I still don't understand how to eliminate the gray areas. With the Refine edge open, I can't activate the Magic Wand or Quick Selection Tool.

I'm going to check out the link you included to the help file.

And for the record, I appreciate the explanation about my confusion about gray vs. tan, but you NEVER owe me an apology.

tangomike,

Your selection is getting better; adjusting the Radius made a difference. Practice makes Perfect!

- You need to close Refine Edge.
- You use the Magic Wand or Quick Selection Tool in the Editor (after you place your selection on the new background).
- As you delete the gray areas, the background underneath will show through in those areas.
- The key to success is to zoom in the gray areas to be deleted.

And, for the record, you are very kind. I appreciate it.

[tangomike]

Update for all who contributed to solving my dilemma. This forum is a gold mine of good ideas.

Another moderator used a different application and PM'd me the result. It's closer to perfect than I will ever be able to get, so I'm accepting the offer to use it.

That said, this exercise has triggered an overwhelming desire to learn more about the refine edge process. When this book is finally done, I'm going to begin the process again and use the same image.

Thank all y'all again. (For anyone who doesn't know, y'all is the singular form....)

[Sepiana]

Jun 12, 2024 18:39:39 GMT tangomike said:

Another moderator used a different application and PM'd me the result. It's closer to perfect than I will ever be able to get, so I'm accepting the offer to use it.

That said, this exercise has triggered an overwhelming desire to learn more about the refine edge process.

tangomike,

This is wonderful! Glad to hear you have a "closer to perfect" selection.

BTW, if you want to learn more about using Refine Edge, you may want to check this video posted on the Tutorials board. Remember . . . Practice makes Perfect.

Diving Deep into Refine Edge