any ideas on saving time doing this work :P

Stinky

Stinky

Stinky

Soldato
Joined
28 Mar 2005
Posts
9,250
hi all

i have to cut 560 pictures out using photoshop cs4 and replace the backgrounds with a transparent one! a lot of man hours so looking for ways i can save some time!

at the moment im going to use the background easer tool to rub away the background then transfer the pics onto and transparent file??

however, some pics have a few bit where the colours between the background and item are roughly the same colour so background easer seems to delete the item to (parts of it)

any ways i could save anytime? i need them all done for the weekend :eek:
 
Quick masks? use large brushes etc to make fast masks then just delete selected background and save as gif?

pay me some money to do some for you would be easiest for you imho :P
 
Some examples of the images would be handy, if they are all consistent backgrounds then it would be pretty easy to create an action, run it on everything and then hand pick out any images that didn't work out so well and do them manually.

Could use a number of methods to remove the background, these tutorials are great, here's three methods, lots more if you google Russell Brown.

http://av.adobe.com/russellbrown/BlueSkySM.mov
 
DSCN4509.jpg


that an idea of that they are all on. but not all hats! the red mark is a marking made so they new where to position the products
 
Not a PS expert, but I'd probably do it something like this:

Set background colour to white, magic wand tool to select the background (tweak the tolerance if needed), quick mask to tidy up any stray bits, then press delete to wipe out the selection and give the clean white background.
 
the quick seletion tool seems to work pretty well but there are some products that dont differ enough from the background colour so it pics that out to :(
 
Who did the photography - could they not have set up the studio so that the backgrounds were properly blown out ?

Is it worth considering re-shooting the objects as this (once the studio setup is OK) may be the quicker option ?

Getting 500 odd images masked to within a pixel or two will be a nightmare job - as you are probably finding out :-/
 
If the images are similar to the one above, then you could use curves to make the background white, while leaving the tone and colour of the item. Would only work if the item didn't have any similar colour to the background. This could then be saved as an action and batch processed.
 
I've just written a quick and dirty guide along the lines of Kahns suggestion. It would be easier to group together the photos which have similar lighting and colours for best results but it's worth a shot and very quick to try.


Open image in Photoshop, open Curves (CTRL + M) and then play with the curve to find the best balance between background and subject. See screenshot below for my quick play:



Once you've found something you're happy with make a note of the settings used before clicking OK then go back to the original image.

Now press ALT+F9 to bring the actions menu up.

Start off by minimising the default actions folder (set) shown and click the "Create new set" folder icon at the bottom of the actions menu and call it my actions or something.

Then click the "Create new Action" icon to the right of it and call it whiteout or whatever you want.

Once you've done this the record icon will be selected and red. Anything you now do in Photoshop is recorded, even switiching the tabs of open files (in CS4 anyway).

All you need to do now is set your curve then click OK.

The next step is to Save for Web and devices (CTRL+ALT+SHIFT+S) whilst stil lrecording. Do not edit the filename becasue the action will then keep overwiting the same file but make sure you choose the appropriate compression settings and a completely new folder.

Next just hit the "Stop recording/playback" button in the Actions panel.

Now all you need to do is to get Photoshop to batch process the action you have just recorded. To do this go to "File > Automate > Batch.."

You'll probably find your action has already been preselected but use the first tow drop-downs to select the Set and Action. Next just pick the source file folder and hit OK. There is no need for Destination as the save action was done during the action instead.

This is how it looks in my CS4:




You will need to go back and brush out the red bit, but that's a very simple task in comparison.
 
thnaks for that!

ive now done all the beanies and have things like these.


you can see there is a t-shirt under the scaff that i need to keep there :( and the eyelashes are being a pain to :(

DSCN4850.jpg


DSCN4644.jpg


i might email the guy ask him if he wants me to just to take out the stand as well. i hope not !
 
To be honest if the pictures were taken properly it would be easier as you should be able to get with good lighting a white background, for example put the eyelashes on a lightbox out of that packing and they will be easy to do.

Its a case of your using a yellow and dim light source to illuminate things which need to be on white backgrounds.
 
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