Removing Distracting Backgrounds the Painless Way

Saturday, October 13, 2012

Removing Distracting Backgrounds 

The Painless Way!

(Masking)

Introduction

If you are reading this any time before October 13, don't worry. I've been writing instalments  this week with a vengeance (working very hard)! Today's instalment is about removing a toy or anything else from  distracting backgrounds or other undesirable items in the photo.

    The term is "masking" and it means to hide the part of the photo that you do not want and to let the part that you want show up. Before Photoshop, there were highly-trained and expert people working in the graphic arts profession and publishing.  These people worked moistly from slides (transparencies), and would have to cut out the image very carefully, and then place it on a larger transparent sheet. So if a company had 20 different products to be place on a newspaper inser, the skilled person would have to cut out 20 separate slides, and then carefully arrange them on that single sheet. It was much more complex than that, but I won;t get into details.

   In the late 1980's, I took my pro photography class to a large-sized printing company. The room where these people worked must hav been 40' x 60' (12 meters c 18 meters). There were only 2 Apple Macs in this room where probably about 20 people used to work.  All of these people had sadly disappeared to be replaced by 2 computers. Photoshop had done that!

  Nowadays, photographers not only do the photography, but retouch, mask, and even may create a composite (1 large photo with many smaller ones).  Large companies,advertising agencies , and large-sized printing companies use professional photographers who use these skills. The whole industry had changed dramatically. The same large companies, advertising agencies, and large printing companies all understand the roll of the photographer today. AS such, when a photographer quotes or bids on a contract his/her price will be high, but the "unwritten work required" is understood by all.

   Sadly however, it's the small companies, and individuals who don't understand this. So when a photographer says he'll charge you $ 150.00 for a catalogue shot, there is a whole lot more than he/she is including with the image. The "small-sized" customer will probably use his son or daughter to take the photo with their camera and Photoshop it.  The "small" customer think he/she has saved big time, but unless their son or daughter is a master Photoshop person or photographer, they've compromised on a big scale, and lost the true competency and capability of a professional photographer. And I haven;t even mentioned the lighting and camera skills needed to take a photo!

Masking

     I already explained the term masking, but simply put, it's a term used to removed a distracting background or foundation (what something is sitting on in a photo) or objects from a photo. Photoshop is the leader in photo-enhancement software. However it's very expensive for the average person or even company. There are other softwares that do similar jobs (I need to tread softly here), but Photoshop's reputation and advertising and client loyalty had made them # 1, and they want to stay there. It's the same for MS Word!

     The concern that I have is that for me, masking in Photoshop is torture. I've reread and read about masking in Photoshop, but it's still more time-consuming and complicated than I care to work with. I have something called Fluid Mask 3 which is super,but I decided to write about  Perfect Mask 5 today.  Perfect Mask 5 can be a plug-in or a stand-alone program. A plug-in is a software than can be part of a more-established  program such as Photoshop. A  stand-alone program means that you use the program by itself. 

    The reason that I'm writing today about Perfect Mask 5 is that I downloaded it as a demo, and have only 30 days to try it out. I own a copy of Fluid Mask 3, and can write about that later.

   As for the reason why I have a separate masking program is simple:

  1. It's simpler to use.

 2. It's more user-friendly.

3. It's not complicated.

4. I was able to use it right away.

5. I didn't need to torture myself with books or long pages of instruction.

6. I can always do the more-complicated work in the program if I need to. I just have to look an the 

   instructions and spend the time to do so. Even the more-complicated "stuff" is simpler than you 

   know what!

    However, and this is a big however, I want to thank Adone for having had the opportunity to always purchase their software at the educational price as a teacher! Not every company has educational pricing, and with Adobe being costly, the savings as a teacher were important to me! Of course, being honest, I now have to but Photoshop as a regular person - Ouch!  I should write to Adobe and ask them to have an educational pricing for 'retired teachers!

Perfect Mask 5

     The main window and menu of Perfect Mask 5 is simple, as you can see below.

  1. Left: The tool Bar

2. Middle: The Photo

3. Right: Toot Bar Adjustments

As toy can see, the window is less "cluttered that Photoshop.

However, to be fair, you can remove lots of "clutter" menus in Photoshop.

  1. Left: The tool Bar - expandA more complicated and sophisticated menued

2. Middle: The Photo and an Adjustment Menu

3. Right:  

I'm not going to write too much about how to use the program. I'm just going to show you the ease to which this program can be used.

 A close-up Photo of a Brush

In this case it's an eraser brush.

THe inner circle is the eraser, while the outer circle is the limit to what will be erased.

So placing the inner circle where you want to erase, allows you to work fast, as the outer circle is your  "safety zone that won't be erased..

This is the easier way to mask!

  An Easy to Understand Menu for the brush adjustments (eraser)

Of course, you'll need to spend a bit of time for the "Invert Mask and Reset Mask"  functions.

  I did most of the erasing with the Brush

  Sometimes, you have to adjust your tools because the software doesn't separate tones or colour easily. The policeman's chin and nose are not distinguishable enough from the burlap background. If I were to use the eraser (Circle shape of the brush), I would not be able to easily separate the face from the burlap.

   I decided to change 1 menu tool (brush-eraser) for a pen.

The pen tool simple adds small points to define a space that you want removed.

It's the same thing in Photoshop.

  The Pen In Action

Of course, the pen has loads of sub-menus to define the points better.

  When the pen returns to the first point that you placed, you can click on that same starting point.

DOING THAT Doing that allows you to remove the undesirable area from the photo.

   The undesirable area has been removed.

Notice that the "cut" is too sharp and cut out a piece of the policeman's chin.

All I have to do is  edit>>undo, and start over.

Also, I can adjust the edges of the pen to what is called "feathering".

"Feathering" means to adjust the  cut out parts so that thy have softer edges. This allows for better-quality separation, and a smoother transition from what is left and what is removed.

  The Final Result

It's far from perfect! However, like my Fluid Mask 3 program that I own, it's easy to learn!

The above took me 5 minutes to do. However, I do have a very good (not excellent) understanding of Photoshop, so working with 1 program allows for skills transfer to any other. Also, you can always save the image at any point in time, and then go to Photoshop for the final work. I will be writing about Fluid Mask 3 in the near future.

Have a look at either of  Fluid Mask 3 or Perfect Mask 5, and by all means download a demo. They're fun to use, and you might find that they're easier for you to master.

That's it for now.

Thanks for dropping by, and as always,

have a good morning,afternoon, or evening, 

wherever you may be.

Stacey Bindman

Montreal,Quebec,Canada

45.5081° N, 73.5550° W

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