Photoshop help?

[stinger608]

Just starting to use Photoshop, and kind of needing some help at the moment.

What I want to do, is to take a picture of lets say a motherboard. Now, I want to capture JUST the motherboard without the background, and be able to change the background to pure white, or what ever color I would like it to be. I know I have seen pictures that have been done this way in photoshop, but just can't seem to find the proper way of doing this.

Thanks in advance

Dano

 

[digibucc]

Just starting to use Photoshop, and kind of needing some help at the moment.

What I want to do, is to take a picture of lets say a motherboard. Now, I want to capture JUST the motherboard without the background, and be able to change the background to pure white, or what ever color I would like it to be. I know I have seen pictures that have been done this way in photoshop, but just can't seem to find the proper way of doing this.

Thanks in advance

Dano

the magic wand or selection tool . mess with the sensitivity to make it select more or less of the background.

cs5 is supposed to have some new tools to make it easier, but as of now it is still pretty labor intensive. the best way is to take the picture, and do it on a solid color sheet with minimal wrinkles. than you can just delete all of that easily.


appreciate the late addition mailman - and it is the better way to do the job i'm sure , but not "the only way"... obviously after 2 months the way I gave worked as well... plus use of the pen tool requires a much steadier hand if you don't want to be repeating yourself. magic wand may take some fiddling but in the end your steadiness doesn't matter - just find the right mixture of settings and pluck your image right out of the background.

 

[TheMailMan78]

Use the pen tool. That is the only way.

1. Duplicate the layer.
2. Draw a line around the mobo with the pen tool.
3. Go to the path panel and click in the menu button in the upper right corner as show below.

4. Click on "Make Selection"
5. Invert the selection as show in the image below.

6. Hit delete and you are done.

PM me if you have any more questions.

 

[panchoman]

pen tool is a pain in the ass to use - definently wouldn't recommend it to a newbie.

just do as digi said - select the background, using either the magic wand tool or the quick select tool, and select the background, and then delete it, or paint bucket it white. alternatively, if you have cs4 or higher, there is a magic eraser tool too, which does the function of magic wand + delete in a single click.

 

[TheMailMan78]

WTF are you guys talking about being steady? The magic wand isn't accurate and the pen tool is exact. Once you place a node with the pen tool it stays. What has to be steady in that? If anything the pen tool is LESS work to use then the magic wand to get a proper selection.

 

[1Kurgan1]

I agree with the pen tool or using polygonal selection since it basically works the same. I use them all the time.

 

[Meow9000]

Easy way to do this, flat surface and some white cloth or a large piece of card rest the components on there and make sure there's plenty of light heading in their direction. Take photo and you skip all that hard work in Photoshop.

I know its not really what you wanted but alot of companies do this to save time and its easy to set up.

 

[F1reFly]

what i do is select the motherboard area and cut. Then open a new one with a blank white background and just paste the mobo and presto. though i do it with any photo editor thats free but for pasting images onto blank backgrounds it works

 

[digibucc]

WTF are you guys talking about being steady? The magic wand isn't accurate and the pen tool is exact. Once you place a node with the pen tool it stays. What has to be steady in that? If anything the pen tool is LESS work to use then the magic wand to get a proper selection.

The guy asked how to get something done and I told him the easiest way I knew.

I find the pen tool harder to use as you have to be more accurate. unless you are doing it for a high resolution print job the extra work is unnecessary in most cases, in my opinion. I find the magic wand with a little tweaking can do 90% of the work in 10% of the time.

the fact that he didn't come back after 2 months to say it didn't work i think suffices to say it was good enough advice. I never tried to say it was the best or only way , just a way and the easiest way I knew.

 

[erocker]

why are you getting upset just because we do something differently?

Yes.

Polygonal selection tool is what I use. If you don't, you suck. ...and of course I'm kidding.

You can always add a nice drop shadow to the board as well and have it look pretty realistic.

 

[Benetanegia]

My method is best! WTF guys?

Well. Just to add some fuel to the fire...

My fav method of selection for doing this kind of thing is the quick mask (pressing Q), because it's easy to add some 1-3 transparent pixels to the borders, which usually makes it look better. You know, paint over the object with whatever method you like then add a subtle gaussian blur (1-3 pixels depending on the resolution of the pic) and you are done (after pressing Q again). For medium/complex shapes, I find it faster than other methods too, but that's just me probably.

 

[TheMailMan78]

My method is best! WTF guys?

Well. Just to add some fuel to the fire...

My fav method of selection for doing this kind of thing is the quick mask (pressing Q), because it's easy to add some 1-3 transparent pixels to the borders, which usually makes it look better. You know, paint over the object with whatever method you like then add a subtle gaussian blur (1-3 pixels depending on the resolution of the pic) and you are done (after pressing Q again). For medium/complex shapes, I find it faster than other methods too, but that's just me probably.

Add a 1 or 2 pixel feather and you get a better effect.

 

[Benetanegia]

Add a 1 or 2 pixel feather and you get a better effect.

Yeah, what I meant is that you have a bigger control over the shape since you can paint/erase as many times as you want. Then add the blur after you are happy with the selection, then erase the blur in areas where you don't want the feather effect etc...

What I actually do is quick mask, then inside the mask I use the pen tool, quickly, without the need to make a perfect selection. Use that selection to paint. Then use the brush/erase tool on the tricky areas. For me that's faster than using the pen tool on complex shapes. <- Obviously for a MB, either the pen tool or the polygonal selection tool suffices.

I was just adding fuel to the fire anyway, it's been 2 months since the OP got it done.

EDIT: IMO, technically, 1-2 feather effect is not better than the gaussian blur BTW. The gaussian blur adds some subtle randomness to the transparency which makes it look a little more natural (real life or nature is not perfect). Barely noticeable, I give you that, but in essence the effect is superior.

 

[W1zzard]

get a white or dark background, shoot highest resolution, use the polygon tool and stay inside of what you want to crop out (so you lose a few pixels, but dont get a white border), feather 1 or 2 pixels, size down to target resolution. add layer drop shadow if you want it to look less flat

thats how all the images in our latest reviews list are done

great suggestion with the pen method, didnt know about that

if you have trouble scrolling while zoomed in, hold the space key and drag the image

 

[kid41212003]

What W1zz said, but Magicwand + feather instead, lol.