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Wonder Woman1977
Wonder Woman1977
Participant
October 24, 2024
Question

Learning - How to fill selection and remove background

  • October 24, 2024
  • 1 reply
  • 1516 views

Hello,

First off here's a link to a folder on my Google Drive containing the files I am working with. I have also attached the files to this post.  The folder also contains screenshots of some of what I see when working on the project. I included a screenshot showing what gets selected when I do the "select subject" to try to copy & paste the image into the receiving file. The other files are the original images, the images saved in .PSD format and sample results of what I get when doing both the select subject>copy>paste and select all>copy>paste into a sample .PSD file with just a blue background I created to show the results.  

My Project Files

 

I am working on learning Photoshop 2024 on Win 11 Pro and need help doing something that should be simple.  I have a .PNG file that is a comic book thought cloud balloon (TCB) that I need to import into another image but I cannot get it to import correctly. I have saved the original but also saved it as a Photoshop file. I have tried doing multiple things but it fails in the following ways:

 

The TCB original image .PNG is visually a simple image comprised of the TCB having a black stroke with the TCB having a white fill and a transparent background. I have tried a couple of different TCB images that are similar and I cannot get what I am trying to do to work as I need it.
When I do select subject it doesn't select the entire TCB, it only selects parts of it. When I copy the "select subject" and then paste it into the other file it of course only pastes the portion that was selected.

 

When doing the select subject it selects the TCB including the black stroke and parts of the white inside but not all of the white inside. When doing this select subject the stroke seems to have an outer selection and inner selection in some areas but not all and the inner area also includes only some but not all of the inside area which is supposed to be all white.

 

When I do select subject and do edit>fill>foreground color (which I have set to white) it fills even the area that is the black stroke.
When I do select subject and try to use the paint bucket to fill in the inside of the TCB nothing happens, the area never gets anything filled into it.
I am unfamiliar with working with any sort of masks but I have tried creating a mask to use that to fill but not understanding masks I cannot figure out how to use them to fill the inside of the TCB.

 

When I do select all and then paste into the receiving file it pastes with the checkerboard background. I was working with trying to remove the background previously but that would remove parts of the TCB and today I cannot even get access to the button "remove background" to show up when clicking on the image and cannot figure out why or how to get that feature to show up.


All help is greatly appreciated......

This topic has been closed for replies.

1 reply

Trevor.Dennis
Community Expert
Trevor.DennisCommunity Expert
Community Expert
October 25, 2024

Hi @Wonder Woman1977 , and thank you for putting that theme tune into my head where it will now stay for hours. 😉

 

I think you are over complicating what you are trying to do.  Select Subject is good with something like a person standing on a beach, but not good at all at content like the thought bubble.  I would make it super simple by selecting the area outside the talk bubble and inverting the selection.  I have turned on Quick Mask in this example because it is clearer than the marching ants.

 

You mentioned that this came into the image as a PNG file.  How did you go about that?

Did the TB have transparency around it?  If yes, why did you need to select it?

There is a bit of a gotcha with PNG files with transparency.  They don't properly if you try to paste them into a document.  The transparent area tends to turn black.  Best way is to use File > Place Embedded assuming the file exists on a local drive.

 

You also mentioned that the file pastes with the checkerboard background.  That's because you included that in the selection.   When you need to select a layer's content, Ctrl Click its Icon like below

 

 

Do you know that there is a folder of TB shapes in Photoshop?

If you don't have them, click on the three bars top right corner of the Shapes panel, and import Legacy Shapes and More.

 

As a general rule of thumb Shapes and other vector objects are preferred over raster (pixels) when dealing with graphic art.  It is infinitely scaleable and will remain perfectly sharp at any size.  You can edit a shape using the Direct Selection Tool (White arrow)

 

 

If I have missed your point, then please ask more questions (as many as you like).  This will bump your thread to the top of page one — it had slipped all the way to page five without an answer, and it is less likely to be seen so far back.

 

Wonder Woman1977
Wonder Woman1977Author
Participant
October 25, 2024

Hello,

 

Thank you for the information.  I did not know that there were TB shapes in Photoshop.  I created a blank fresh empty file in Photoshop but I am unable to locate the Shapes Group Panel.  I do see a Custom Shape tool but there are no TB shapes in there and when I go to the drop down list for the list of shapes there is an import shapes option, not an import legacy variation and there are no shapes for that tool that I can find to import.  Can you give me some steps to follow to find how to open the shapes panel?  Like I have said, I am a newbie that is learning.

 

As for where I got the .PNG file, since I am not an artist, I always resort to doing a Google search for the simple images I need.  I found a couple of sites that had images to offer free and when I found a few I liked I either downloaded it or in the case of this particular one since I had problems downloading it I used Windows Sniping Tool to take a screenshot.  I just located the original site again through the history on my browser and I tried to DL it again but this time I had no problems with the DL'ing so I did that this time.  This is the site I got it from:  Desktop Speech balloon, Comic book cloud, love, angle, white png | PNGWing

I just now made a copy of the original file I just mentioned that I was finally able to DL and I was curious about the functionality of the DL'd file versus the screenshot version I had been using so I attempted to do a "Select Subject>Copy>Paste" and pasted it into the file I want it in.  I hid all of the layers to show you only the layer that has the pasted TCB and the interesting thing is that it does not select or paste the entire TCB outline, there are small segments of the stroke/outline that get omitted and there is no white fill that gets pasted over, it pastes over as a transparent TB with no fill.  I know you told me about the issues with Select Subject, but I was just curious about it with the actual downloaded file.

 

I am going to try your method of File>Place Embeded to see how that works for me.  I have a ton of learning to do but I intend to get there because I know I can.

 

I finally had success with getting the TB brought into the file I need it in.  I was able to get it done using my method of Select Subject and then I kept using the add to selection tool and kept doing test pastes into the file I needed it in to keep modifying the selection until it brought everything in including the white fill.  It worked using the downloaded version of the file rather than the file I made through taking a screenshot.  I still intend to try your suggested method of place embedded.  I think that method will probably wind up being the least labor intensive method that I will wind up using as my go to method.....

 

Thank you for all the help I appreciate it.

 

 

 

 

Trevor.Dennis
Community Expert
Trevor.DennisCommunity Expert
Community Expert
October 27, 2024

What version of Photoshop are you using?  You mentioned Photoshop 2024 in your original post.  The latest release version is 26.0  Go Help > About Photoshop to see your version number.  If you are using an earlier version, can you either update, or tell us why if you are unable to do that?

You would need to be using a very early version not to have a Shapes panel.

You can open it from the Windows menu on a Windows 11 system

 

When you open the Shapes panel in the Essentials workspace, it should appear in this location

 

You need to be in the Shapes panel to import Legacy Shapes and More click on the three bars top right corner, and you see that open in the menu. 

I like to set the panel to show Large Thumbnail for greatest clarity.

There are a LOT of shapes when you import Legacy Shapes and More, so it is often easier to use the search bar at the top of the panel.  Unfortunately, that search tool is not 'fuzzy'.  It uses the exact wording and spelling you use.  So think about alternative search parameters like 'Speach' instead of 'Talk'. 

Or just search for Bubble

As I mentioned before, PNG files do not work properly when you copy and paste.  You need to Save Image, and Place Embedded.  There is no problem pasting JPGs into a Photoshop document window.

 

We all use Google to source image elements.  Do you know to click on Tools > Size > Large to get higher resolution images?  You add search terms like white background to make it easier to islolate the part you need using Remove Background. You need to reselect Large every time you change the search parameters.

 

Other sites I like to use are:

https://yandex.com/images/    (my favourite after Google)

https://unsplash.com/

https://pixabay.com/

https://www.pexels.com/

https://picryl.com/

 

 

 

 

 

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