Accurate White Deleting

[jamhead]

Hey, I have a little problem:

I need a method to accurately delete the whiteness around an image. Normally what I do is is get the magic wand tool find a good tolerance value that works and delete it. Problem is I always end up with a damaged pixely surface around the edge of the image.

One thing I've tried doing is getting the history brush tool, get right in small and revive the edges. Problem is I can't quite manage to hide the fact that there's still traces of evidence that there's been some deleting work gone on around it.

So would anbody be able to tell me a method to stop this?

Just incase that wasn't clear what I'm talking about here's an example of what I'm doing:

1 http://img201.imageshack.us/img201/5969/example1eg2.jpg

2 http://img201.imageshack.us/img201/8282/example2zr1.jpg

as you can see the edges of the image became damaged in the process.

Thanks for any help

[Johnathan]

Go around it with the pen tool. It's much better for doing that sort of thing with than the magic wand.

[artd]

Hi jamhead,

Because the Magic Wand tool selects by color, it seems to do a better job on some images than others.

I agree with johnathan, the best way to select curved objects (like this apple) is by using the pen tool and converting the path to a selection. It takes awhile to catch on to using that tool, but it's well worth the time. Here's the apple cut out using the Pen tool to make the selection.

[libigoogibil]

On a simple shape like this, using CTRL-Click with the magic wand brush to also select the shadows, and then using the Refine Edge tool to smooth out the edges might do the trick.

The pen tools feels like such a hassle, I agree, but a lot of times it's the best way to go

If you spend a lot of time on this and have some dollars to burn, Vertus Fluid Mask is a pretty good (although a bit expensive) tool.

[jamhead]

Ok, thanks a bunch everyone
Never actually used the pen tool before so this is gonna take some getting used to.
This may take awhile xD ah well, thanks again

[libigoogibil]

On such a straightforward shape, it just hit me that maybe the (often forgotten) magnetic lasso tool can do the trick quicker. And follow it up with Refine Edge if necessary..

[jamhead]

Brill! Using the Magnetic lasso tool to select the object then refine edge slighty, then ctrl+shit+I to revert and delete then go over with the edge with history brush tool. Finally with a low opacity erasor tool the edge looks quite nice

Here's how it did with a pencil:

http://img181.imageshack.us/img181/5372 ... opygo9.png

[jerryb]

hi,
so many different ways..... and i am not good at using the pen myself.. just not good enough I still have tons to learn.... but what i use many times is channel masking... it depends if there good contrast but it works with me...

basically you choose a channel that has the best contrast and then duplicate the channel and do a level or curve adjustment on the duplicate channel to where you get a nice black and white ... then save it as a mask.... i am not explaining it too well so here a couple of tutorials
http://www.phong.com/tutorials/mask.tree/
another variation of this
http://www.lazymask.com/alpha-channel-tutorial.html
russel brown has nice video tutorial called "advanced masking"
at this link it toward the end of the page
http://russellbrown.com/tips_tech.html

I hope i was of some help..

Hey, I have a little problem:

I need a method to accurately delete the whiteness around an image. Normally what I do is is get the magic wand tool find a good tolerance value that works and delete it. Problem is I always end up with a damaged pixely surface around the edge of the image.

One thing I've tried doing is getting the history brush tool, get right in small and revive the edges. Problem is I can't quite manage to hide the fact that there's still traces of evidence that there's been some deleting work gone on around it.

So would anbody be able to tell me a method to stop this?

Just incase that wasn't clear what I'm talking about here's an example of what I'm doing:

1 http://img201.imageshack.us/img201/5969/example1eg2.jpg

2 http://img201.imageshack.us/img201/8282/example2zr1.jpg

as you can see the edges of the image became damaged in the process.

Thanks for any help