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Photography Question 

Wendy P
 

Blacking Out Background


I have a picture of my son that was taken yesterday that I would like to change the background on. Is there a way I can black out the background around him without making a cutout or the end results looking like a cutout? Everything I have tried with Picture It Publishing doesn't look right and I have yet to figure out how to make a clean cut with Corel. Any suggestions?


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April 09, 2007

 

John P. Sandstedt
  Yes, if you have Photoshop ELements 4.0 or 5.0, or Photoshop CS2.

The Tool is called the Magic Extractor. Activiate the Tool and your image will be placed in a special window. You select a brush size and place dots [or even scribble a line around that portion of the image you want to extract. Release the mouse and the area of the picture will be "selected" as evidenced by the marching ants.

Then look to the Menu Line and Click on Select > Inverse. This changes the portion of the image selected to "everything else." Delect this or erase it. [I use delect as it's much faster.]

Now open a new document. CHoose the dimensions you want and the resolution. Use the Marquis Tool to select the entire document. Make certain the Foreground Color Box is Black. From the Menu Line select Edit > Fill. When the window appears select Opacity = 100%. You have a black document.

Go to the other image and, use the Marquis Tool again to capture the extracted portion of this image. Copy the selection [Ctrl C.] Switch to the other document and paste the picture [Ctrl V.] This will place the image in a new layer above the black background. You can use the Move Tool to position the image.

Then, from the Menu Line select Layer > Flatten Image. Any cleanup you need to do using the Clone Tool can be nowaccomplished easily. And, Voila!


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April 18, 2007

 
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