Help needed with photo background

[Michael Bareno]

Hi,
First of all thanks for all the information you guys share on SMC.
A customer requested that we make several awards and plaques, with on photo engraving on granite tile. We purchased Black Granite Oval Tile (5 x 7") from laserbits and we were ready to go.

That is, until I saw the photo I had to use to engrave. The quality I believe is OK, however I cannot get the background removed without ruining the hair (see attached pic). Does any one have an idea on what the best way to do this? Maybe someone can help us out with this?

Tried attaching full size image but it is a 600kb jpeg, it was sized down a bit. It is available here https://www.yousendit.com/download/RmNBck8rdzhvQUozZUE9PQ


Any help is appreciated. Thanks a bunch.

Mike

[Martin Boekers]

Check this out it should help, may be a bit tough on granite as hair can be finely detailed.

http://www.corel.com/servlet/Satelli.../1172446823594

Do some testing first.

Hope this helps.

Marty

[Dan Hintz]

I've found Paint.NET to be surprisingly good at this sort of thing. Lasso the entire sky and any hair that includes the sky in it. Use the color changer tool and select some of the blues you see in the sky, set the "change to" color to white. Adjust your sliders in real time until it all fades to white (or black, whichever you choose).

[Darren Null]

Give that a go. There's a blue cast around the edge where the sky was showing through the hair; but you're going to convert it to B&W anyway. Incidentally, you can have 1Mb zip files as attachments.
I used this plugin:
http://www.imageskill.com/background...ndremover.html
Let me know if you're not happy with it & I'll actually read the instructions. I just used the force and went for it. Can almost certainly be improved...

[Dee Gallo]

Nice job, Darren!

[Darren Null]

Can't take the credit really- it was the software. If I was actually doing it, I would have used photoshop's 'select colour range' tool and deleted most of the sky (shades of blue), THEN gone round the edge and used the eraser on the jaggies THEN used the burn tool to darken and de-blue the blue-tinted hair. That takes ages to do properly though.

[Scott Shepherd]

Here is my shot at it. I'm new to Photoshop.....

[Frank Corker]

Lol you missed her eyebrows Steve!

[Michael Bareno]

Martin and Dan, thanks for the tips. I tried these but the results were not as good as Darren's. Thanks for the help Darren!

Steve, I wish I could use your image but I do hope that next year's winner has less (or no) hair, maybe wearing a cap.

Have a good week guys!

Mike

[Darren Null]

More hair! More! MORE!

[Dan Hintz]

More cowbell!

[Darren Null]

That'd be cruel. She looks like a nice person. And that was the only thing that stopped me whipping out my photoshop collection of victorian moustaches.

[Michael Bareno]

Her name is Sarah Quita Offringa and will be receiving the sportsperson of the year award. She's 18 years old and already twice world champion freestyle windsurfing.

I have a follow up question, if I engrave this on granite, I will have to invert the image, right? Would I have to make the background black instead of white before I invert?

If so, Darren, would you be able to run it again but with a black background?

Thanks again.

Mike

[Darren Null]

I can do better than that- you can have it with no background. That way you can process it how you like without having to worry about anything but the main image. Included in the file are PSD (photoshop) and PNG flavours (in case you don't have photoshop).

I also read the instructions, and this attempt is much improved (got rid of the blue colour cast pretty nearly completely- that bit was winding me up):
http://www.mediafire.com/?m2mmaimjzij

I have to say, I'm liking the plugin. It's a very simple interface, so I wasn't too hopeful initially, but I'm actually getting better results in a shorter time than the others I've played with. And that includes some that cost 3 times the price. Sometimes extra buttons are just extra chances to mess things up.
DISCLAIMER: I got given the plugin free as a result of this thread:
http://www.sawmillcreek.org/showthread.php?t=132361
...so I'm naturally well disposed towards the company and you'll have to bear my possible bias in mind. But if I wasn't pleased with it I wouldn't mention it. And, of course, you can judge the results for yourself.

[Bruce (Jack) Campbell]

Man I think you guys just convinced me not to post my image