Pasting an image by having a transparent background? Or how?

[MaryAnna]

Is it possible to make the entire background transparent?

I have an image I want to repeat several times for a contest. I want to have it alone, and then copy/paste it onto another image. But I don't know how to get rid of the background it's already on. It is not the precise shape of anything in the new picture. Not like a face, for example.

Forget Me Not (Maybe still showing as MaryAnna, but I'm changing my name)

[Scott]

Hi MaryAnna,

Take a look at this tutorial:

http://www.pixeladdiction.com/bb/articles.php?action=viewarticle&artid=25

It covers the basics of extracting images, especially those that may not have a clearly defined area.


As for the username... it's going to continue to be MaryAnna until you visit this link..

http://www.pixeladdiction.com/PA.php

It takes a bit of work to change a username. It's not something we do just because it's requested.

[MaryAnna]

Hi, Jolt,

Think I will stay MaryAnna and spend my $5.00 on embroidery thread.

Meanwhile, I'll try the tutorial. It looks really hairy. I checked it last night.

MaryAnna

[chaswp54]

Hi MaryAnna,
If you want to do just a simple extraction of something the Pen Tool is a pretty good choice as well. It takes some getting use to at first but once you get the hang of it, it will work for a good majority of extractions. As long as you don't have a lot of "Tuffs of hair" coming from someone's head, you can extract something fairly fast. Here's a basic run down on what I do.
1. Make a duplicate of your image (Image>duplicate) and close out the original. (Never work with the original unless you have it backed up somewhere.)
2. Click the "Zoom Tool" and pick a spot on your image where you want to start and click a few times till you zoom in and can actually see the pixels themselves along the edge of what your selection is to be and the background.
3. Select your "Pen Tool" and find a spot in the fuzzy area along the image to start and click once to put an "Anchor". Then move along and put click to put anchor points along the edge of the part of the image you want to extract always trying to keep the points as close to the edge as possible but keeping in the part you want to extract. When you have a long straight edge you can make your anchor points farther apart where as when you have to make curves you'll have to make them closer together. If you put a point where you don't want, hit "Ctrl + Z" to undo your last point or "Alt + Ctrl + Z" to undo mulitple steps backwards. If you need to move an anchor point, hold your Ctrl key down and you'll notice your Pen Tool change to a little arrow. Just put it on a point while holding the Ctrl key down and drag it where you want.

As you move along, you'll eventually get to the point where your image is out of the viewable area. Hold your "Space Bar" down and you'll notice your Pen Tool point change to the little hand. While holding the Space Bar down, pull the image in which ever direction you want and release. Your Pen Tool point will come back and you continue on.

Now... once you have gone full circle around your image then click one time on the very first Anchor Point you put down. **note** on occasion and I don't know what the cause is, sometimes that last line will get all squirrely on you as you go to click that last one, if it does, hold down the "Alt key" and complete the selection. Once you come full circle with your anchor points, you'll see all the anchor points disappear. (If you still continue to see the line coming off your pen tool point on occasion after clicking that last time, hold the Ctrl key down and click one time out somewhere away from the other anchor points.)

After closing your selection, move your pen tool right over the line you see and Right Click once. In the menu that pops up, choose "Make Selection" and then you'll see the "Marching Ants".

Press "Ctrl + C" or "Image>Copy" and then if you want to put the extraction in a new layer in your exisiting document press "Ctrl + V". If not and you want the image for use in other documents, then go to "File>New" and just press "OK" in the window that pops up and then either press "Ctrl + V" or "Edit>Paste" into the new document. I would suggest saving the new document as a .psd file if you are going to use over and over.

I hope this helps. Below is a screenshot of the basic Pen settings to start out with.

[Dave]

Nice job Charles, thank you. :)

[MaryAnna]

Hi, Jolt, Chas, and Dave,

A frustration for me, is that some of the tools won't stay set for more than about 3 uses. I think primarily of the clone tool, since that is the only one I am fairly comfortable with, at this early stage.

I have to keep re-setting the clone tool. Would I have to keep resetting these other tools, as well? Gee, at this rate, it would take hundreds of hours to get as good as the rest of you are. I am just so frustrated I could scream. Aieeeeee!!!!!!!!

MA

[chaswp54]

MaryAnna, Not sure what you mean by your tools not staying set, so let's start with just the "Clone Tool" for this conversation.

When you have your Clone Tool selected, and you find an area that you want to "Clone" and use that area some place else, what exactly do you do?

As for as the "Pen Tool", in my experience, once I have the basic settings I want (as shown in the above screenshot) and just doing a "point by point" or "anchor by anchor" click with the Pen Tool, nothing changes till I intentionally change it.

[Dave]

It might help if you could show us the image you're trying to edit and try and explain exactly what you want to do. Personally I can't see that using a clone tool is going to help you get rid of a background also if you wanted to copy something onto a transparant background it would be easier to either simply copy the seected image as a new layer (then you can move it around distort and rotate it to your hearts content) or to set it up as a brush and "paint" it onto the background.

[MaryAnna]

Dave, Okay, I would love to show you all the image. Let's see if I can figure it out!

I got the idea from the Beginner's Contest -- but won't be able to enter, because it went by too fast. But that's okay! I would be glad to work on the image for a while anyway.

I hope I can figure out how to post it.

Here goes:

I think I uploaded it...

MA

Now I hope I did it right.

Well, as you can see, I don't know how to get my image onto the message!!!!!!!

MA

[Dave]

You might have to make a reduced copy of it to fit within the allowed paramaters, the maximum width is 550px for the forums.

[MaryAnna]

Okay, it is now 500 px wide.

I'll see if it works.

MA

Hmmmmm.....I don't see it b4 I post it....

I did Manage Attachments, Browse, Upload, Close Window, and then I tried both Post Quick Reply and Go Advanced in different messages. Where'd I go wrong? I can't think of any other options!

[Dave]

There are other liimits but when you try to upload if it fails you should get a message in the "Manage Attachments" window, do not close the window until you see the file appear on the message board.

The filesize (dimensions) limit for a jpg is 293Kb (I tried a very large file to guarantee failure and that was the message I got). so as well as being less than 550px wide (and 1200px high) the filesize in Kb has to be kept down too.

"Go Advanced" is a preview of the post, once you've previewed you still have to post the reply. The preview howver does not show the image.

[MaryAnna]

I think it must have something to do with the way I Save in Photoshop. I get the size and px size I want, but then, when I go to upload, the image is still way too big.

In Photoshop, I go Save for Web. Then I save till I get the size I want. But I don't know what I am doing wrong. It doesn't "take."

[Scott]

Choose File > Save for Web in Photoshop. Click the "Image Size" tab in the window that pops up. Make certain it's below 500 pixels wide. IF it isn't, input 500 in the width field and click apply.

I'm unclear what "Save till I get the size I want" means.


Then click save. Use the resulting image to upload via the manage attachments button.