Tracing/Masking Help

[Evil]

Yes, yes, I know the rules and I know that I shouldn't post things like this here, but I really need help. LGM and I have managed to get ourselves into a huge project. I can't give you any details because it's a secret, but I can tell you it has nothing to do with AGS and we're calling it "Project UFOVSKGB".

Currently in this project, I need to trace out this wheat and make the background color (the grey), transparent. It has proven to be a very hard task because the grey area around the wheat I can't seem to make transparent. Most tutorials tell me to just cut out the grey and make it a multiply layer, but that doesn't work at all in this situation. I'm not one for masking, and haven't worked with it much, but that seems to be the only way.



Here is a bigger version to work with.

Comments? Ideas? Tips?

[El Drey]

I'm not a big genius in masking myself (I never use it...) so what I mostly do is tediously selecting what I need, feather the selection (in this case about 1 or 2 pixels) and delete the rest. I use that technique for example on the ends of hair strands etc. It's not the professional way, but it's quite close. Most tutorials advise you to use the magic wand, but I'll burn in hell before I use it. But hey, I'm a photoshop heretic.

Hope this helps a bit.

Good luck!

El Drey.

[Fizzii]

I'd probably change the grey background to brownish so that when it's cut out, the edges of the wheat look more wheat colour rather than grey. (using a combination of photofilter/replace colour/hue/sat)


Then I'd use the magic wand, set the tolerance to some suitable value so that most of the background is selected while most of the wheat is left then invert the selection. Then use the lasso tool (use feathering if you want the edges smoother) to select the areas of wheat that were missed by the wand tool.

(I changed the hue back after it was cutout)

That's how I would do it anyhow, though it might not be the best or most efficient way... and it's still messy as I didn't go over it enough with the lasso tool, but hopefully it helps.Ã, 

[Krysis]

Oh, and you can allways smooth the edges once you have the new background.

[Drawken]

I just thought of a way this could be done.
I'm not sure if you know how the masking in photoshop works, so here are the steps taken.
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Select the picture you want to edit, and create a vector mask for it by clicking the little gray box with white circle in it at the bottom of the LAYERS box.
Now, select the white box right next to to your picture. This is to edit the layer mask.
Basically, when you color black, it becomes transparent, when it's white, it is visible.
Now use the line tool. (make sure it's set to FILL PIXELS. It's the solid box on the toolbar when line mode is selected)
Set it to 1 px . You can then make the spaces between the bristles transparent this way. (Using black) The 1 pixel brush will probably be needed in some places too.
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This might seem like a lot of work, but given the quality of the pic this seems, to me, to be the only way your going to get clean results.

[ildu]

Fizzii's method is the best by far. And if the sharpness of the pixelation is worrying you, you can always make the result a blurred mask and fill the background with a similar color.

[LGM]

What's wrong with the quality of the pic? That's 8 megapixels right there! :-p

[Evil]

It's highly sharpened, with some crazy filters on it, I think.

Any other outstanding ideas before I start? I don't want a better idea to pop up when I'm finishing.

[Drawken]

What's wrong with the quality of the pic? That's 8 megapixels right there! :-p

I take it you were replying to me?
What I meant by quality is the background color. It isn't completely solid.
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OK, throw away my idea completely, I tried it, and its not going too hot.
Make the mask using the PEN TOOL instead of the line tool, it makes it a lot easier.
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Here's a messy tutorial of how I would do it.

[LGM]

I was kidding I appreciate your help, actually. This is a very cool project and I am glad to be working on it with Evil.

Sadly we can't divulge any more info. It's not an AGS related project, but it is cool nontheless.

[magintz]

Can't you go to the channels option and do something with the individual colour layers to get the wheat as a mask or something. Never done it myself but I remember reading something about that sometime.

Something about creating an alpha channel as well springs to mind.

[Evil]

I fooled around with the alphas and stuff, but none of it really worked well. I ended up tracing it with a lasso and the spots that were still too grey I went over with a brush. It turned out ok, good enough for what I was doing.

Thanks, all.