Remove Back Ground

[Sign-Man Signs]

Not being the guru with Photoshop or AI, can anyone tell me how to remove the back ground on the attached design so that it is clear and can be overlayed on another layer?

 

[ova]

A crude way would be to outline it with the pen tool in flexi, then mask it. Might take some time depending how clean you want it. Or contact the Vector Doctor



Dave

 

[John Butto]

try this

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=N-TG0-qpZvs

there are many others...

 

[Custom_Grafx]

Not being the guru with Photoshop or AI, can anyone tell me how to remove the back ground on the attached design so that it is clear and can be overlayed on another layer?

Here you go. Should be able to open it up in illustrator.

I used the convert to B/W adjustment, played with the channels to get as much as possible looking "black" while maintaining as smooth an edge as possible (doing a simple b/w conversion with threshold won't do this well because it forces anything to black or white).

I then used that black version to select the areas to be kept as a mask, selected it, then inverse select, then delete.

A better quality image would produce better results.

The quickest way is to use the magic wand tool - but it doesn't always work that well.

 

[Sign-Man Signs]

I hang out with the smartest people. Thank you.
:U Rock:

 

[MikePro]

+1 to making a clippping mask.
another easy way is to use the live trace feature to create your clipping mask object instead of having to drag everything into photoshop and back.

 

[TyrantDesigner]

clipping mask, select similar colors and delete, alpha channels, and probably just going around it with an eraser slowly and systematically are going to be the 4 easiest ways to do what you want. plenty of online tutorials for that.

really bad photo though. REALLY bad. I would get a better photo of a vine first.

 

[jmcnicoll]

In my 17 years of doing imaging work I have found there are no short cuts that work as good as taking the time to either cut it with a pen tool or paint in the mask with quick mask. Some have tried to prove me wrong, but haven't seen anything better than doing it yourself with the correct tools and time.

Jim

 

[phototec]

Mask Pro 4.1

Not being the guru with Photoshop or AI, can anyone tell me how to remove the back ground on the attached design so that it is clear and can be overlayed on another layer?

There are several different ways to remove the background using Photoshop, as mentioned above, the best way is very tedious and time consuming, however, using the OnOne Software's plug-in called Mask Pro 4.1, it would make very fast work of it and give very, very good results.

Mask Pro allows you to cut out a subject from the background by assigning keep and drop colors and simply painting away the background. Mask Pro makes it easy to create masks, selections and clipping paths on difficult subjects like hair, glass and fog all in real-time.

Check out the video, and if interested you can download the FREE 30 day trial version.

http://www.ononesoftware.com/products/mask-pro/

 

[petesign]

That looks pretty cool. I might have to give that trial a go. I do a lot of removable wall graphics during the football season, and that would save me a lot of time.

 

[phototec]

That looks pretty cool. I might have to give that trial a go. I do a lot of removable wall graphics during the football season, and that would save me a lot of time.

I really like the different approach Mask Pro uses to separate the background, by assigning keep and drop colors and simply painting away the background, this allows you to adjust how much or how little to eliminate and tweak to perfection. I know of no other way to remove the background from hair as good as this works.

Don't get me wrong, I don't work for OnOne, but I have been using their products for a very long time and really like them, I find it a better deal to purchase the entire suite. There other biggie is Perfect Resize (formerly known as Genuine Fractals) is the industry standard for enlarging and resizing images. It is renowned across the photographic and printing industries for its ability to increase image size without the loss of sharpness or detail that you might normally expect. The patented, fractal-based interpolation algorithms work like nothing else and the results speak for themselves.

http://www.ononesoftware.com/

 

[Fred Weiss]

I've tried three masking software products and lean towards Mask Pro as being the best of the three by a small amount. All three worked. The others are:

Remask and Fluid Mask.

The problem I had with Mask Pro was that it conflicted with FlexiSign and I had to disable it before Flexi would launch. The only solution to get both to run was to disable all plugins in Flexi.

I would recommend trying the free trial of all three applications to see which you prefer.

 

[J Hill Designs]

cant you copy all ps plugins to a different directory (excluding mask pro) and set that as your PS filter folder in flexi?

 

[Fred Weiss]

cant you copy all ps plugins to a different directory (excluding mask pro) and set that as your PS filter folder in flexi?

No. It's been a while but as I recall the installation of Mask Pro was very restrictive and it would only work where Mask Pro wanted to install it ... which is where Flexi would also find it.

 

[J Hill Designs]

I was thinking copy your PS filters to a different folder for flexi only to use, then install mask pro...photoshop will see it, but flexi wont, because your flexi preferences adobe plugin folder is (now) not the same as the one photoshop uses...

 

[James Chrimes]

I use corel knock out.

 

[phototec]

No. It's been a while but as I recall the installation of Mask Pro was very restrictive and it would only work where Mask Pro wanted to install it ... which is where Flexi would also find it.

Fred, that's another reason for having two different computers, one to work as a high end graphic work station running all the design software like, Adobe software products and plug-ins associated with graphic design, and another computer setup as a RIP work station running Flexi and Production Manager, etc.

Do all you front-end design processing, color correction, effects, image enlarging, sharpening, any filter manipulation, cropping, etc, on the design work station, and then use the RIP computer for the flexi work and production management.

 

["Deposit Please"]

blue channel in photoshop, increase contrast and make adjustments to black/white with levels, zoom in and finish off with black brush to make your selection. Not much to work around since the background is white. good luck

 

[Fred Weiss]

Fred, that's another reason for having two different computers, one to work as a high end graphic work station running all the design software like, Adobe software products and plug-ins associated with graphic design, and another computer setup as a RIP work station running Flexi and Production Manager, etc.

Do all you front-end design processing, color correction, effects, image enlarging, sharpening, any filter manipulation, cropping, etc, on the design work station, and then use the RIP computer for the flexi work and production management.

Unlike many members here, I use Flexi primarily for its vector creating and editing capabilities ... often in conjunction with working with an image in Photoshop. My print production is strictly on a Gerber Edge and we use a second seat of Omega for that purpose. What I don't do is to ever access Photoshop plugins from Flexi, so my preferred solution was as stated.

For those members with inkjet setups, I agree with your advice.

 

[jmcnicoll]

It's been a few years since I last tested any of the third party masking plugins for Photoshop, but at the time I concluded I got a much better mask
by spending the time and doing it right. Now, granted their are times that they actually work, but in those cases you can most likely doing it very fast yourself in photoshop. Unless they have greatly improved since I last looked at them I would still not purchase any of them. That said, for many sign applications they can provide a mask that is good enough. However, if its for something other than a sign viewed at a great distance I would stay away from it.

Jim