Inspiring

Answered

Background Eraser not leaving trace, not to transperant

Forum|Forum|9 years ago
January 3, 2017
5 replies
5425 views

So I shot against a green screen for some senior portraits (never do it again) and I am in the process of clipping my subjects. I am using the background eraser tool which is clipping nicely but it is leaving a smudge (for lack of a better term) around the entire area I erased. When I paste the clip into my digital background, I can see evidence of the tool. It worked yesterday just fine on test cuts from my son's shots. It has to be a simple setting. I have tried the reset tool and tinkered with tolerance etc.

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Correct answer davescm

Hi

With such a nice clean background Select and Mask does a fine job in very little time.

In select and mask use quick select to do the bulk of the selection. Then go round with a small brush (I used 10px 100% hardness and 1% spacing) to paint on the edges of the hair - note this is only the edges and pick up the fine hair.

Output to new layer with mask and do not check decontaminate colours.

Add a new layer clipped to the masked layer and with blending mode set to colour. Paint round the edge using the same colour as the hair. This will take out the green.

Finally their was a bit of a light edge to the girl's top so I set another layer, clipped to the layer below) set to luminosity and painted the edges of her top with the top colour.

Finally insert your background as a layer.

I also increased the exposure ( the histogram showed it was under) and I warmed it slightly (but that is just me )

Dave

Chuck Uebele

Community Expert

My approach is different, as I don't care for the quick selection tools. Duplicate the original layer so you have a layer to work on without damaging the original. Change the image mode to L*A*B* then use the blend if slider to eliminate as much as the green as possible.

Then add a blank layer and merge that with the layer with the blend if correction. This will give you a layer with most the green cutout with transparency. Now lock the transparency. You can then use the clone stamp tool or paint brush tool set to color blend mode to paint over the green fringe areas.

Terri Stevens

Legend

That's such a nice method Chuck. It's interesting to contrast with Dave's method which seems to bring out finer hair detail, but I'd hate to say which is best as there are strengths in both techniques. With LAB you can really boost the colors far more than in RGB like below.

Chuck Uebele

Community Expert

I guess a lot determineso what you're comfortable using. I haven't had a lot of success using the select tools, and find it spend more time trying them than just making other methods like channels. My example was quick and dirty, I wasn't trying to do the best job, just show the steps.

shawne4184364Author

Inspiring

Thank you everyone for the replies. While I have experience in photoshop, I don't even pretend to have scratched the surface of knowing all of its intricacies. With that, as a photographer and frequent user of lightroom, I certainly know better than to destroy an image but all the content I found online about digital backgrounds, the background eraser tool specifically, was used more often than not. With that, I have attached 3 images. The original shot, the background and the edited photo against a blue backdrop which clearly shows the brush strokes. I fussed with the tolerance, I was using a hardness of 100 on the brush settings and even tried a mask but I am afraid my lack of experience in photoshop has left the ugly green bleed in the edited photo. Again, I will never use the green screen again. This is a friend but I do not want to have to call her back to re-shoot. I have successful outdoor photos but shame on me, was trying something new for the yearbook shot and a digital background and did not use a plan b just in case. These are cut down resolutions.

shawne4184364Author

Inspiring

Oh, and I have not done any touch up work on this. This is all raw at this point. My main concern being that I cannot get a clean clip.

K´mo

Participating Frequently

This is done within a minute with Quick Selection tool (select the green background and then inverse selection and hit create mask -button). Then use refine edge from Select-menu, hold down shift-key and select Select and mask. There you can tweak settings and use refine edge brush. That's all.

josephlavine

Community Expert

Double check the Hardness setting of the brush. If the brush is not at 100% Hardness then it will feather the edge. That said, I am not a fan of any tool that erases part of an image. Once pixels are erases, they are gone. A better option is to create a selection and use a layer mask. Try Color Range and then once the Layer Mask is added you can refine the mask.

melissapiccone

Community Expert

The background eraser is still an eraser, and something you should NEVER use in Photoshop. Select and Mask is a way better option and click Decontaminate colors to get all the green out... that stuff bleeds everywhere.

Melissa Piccone | Adobe Trainer | Online Courses Author | Fine Artist

mytaxsite

Inspiring

It has to be a simple setting. I have tried the reset tool and tinkered with tolerance etc.

Or it has to be that some other technique might do a better job. Can you post your image here for us to see it?

shawne4184364Author

Inspiring

I certainly will when I get back home to my PC. At work now. I will post a pre clip and post clip. Appreciate the support.

davescm

Community Expert

Hi

Can you also show the background you want to the images into. Sometimes the selection technique (particularly when it comes to refining the edge and removing edge colour) will depend on the new background

Dave

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