best way to remove background from this photo

[merkk]

I work almost exclusively in lightroom, so my photoshop skills are very weak. I tried removing the background from this image in PS using the Select and Mask function. But the quick selection tool does a very rough job of it. There's a lot of stuff in the background that's similar in color to the foreground object. But some things I thought it should be able to do fairly easily would be to select the red hoses since there's nothing in the foreground matching those colors. But it does a really horrible job of those as well. For example, the right most red hose, if i drag the quick select tool down that hose, it will select the entire floor once i get towards the bottom of the hose. 

Is there a better method to do this? or some way to make the quick selection more accurate? I've watched a couple of tutorial videos on doing this, but so far all of those start with a much easier subject, usually a person against a sky or some other background.

[Mike_Gondek]

Pen tool. The youtubers too often intetnioanlly choose easy images that are not real life retouching, but images that make them look good on youtube.

All the other tools will leave a rough edge and in the end take longer, even with using the amazing Select & Mask to smooth out and refine.

Wil take at most 45 minutes with pen tool if you know how to use. After wards you can make teh vector a  bitmapped mask adn refien with blur tool or other.

[merkk]

So essentially just draw the mask entirely by hand?

[Warren Heaton]

Instead of or with the Pen Tool, you could paint a Layer Mask with the Brush Tool.  I suggest painting a Layer Mask simply becuase it's usually easier for those that are new to Photoshop to use the Brush Tool over the Pen Tool.  

That said, if you're going to be needing to do this with more images later then the Pen Tool is certainly worth knowing how to use.

[davescm]

Hi

A few minutes with the pen tool then convert the path to a vector mask by double clicking the mask symbol at the bottom of the paths panel

A higher resolution image than the one you posted would make this easier as separating parts from the background would be more obvious.

Using the pen tool can seem tricky at first but is well worth learning as it is both quick and accurate

https://helpx.adobe.com/uk/photoshop/using/drawing-pen-tools.html

Dave

[merkk]

geez...that looks better then what I'm working on and i'm still not finished. I posted a low res image just so it would load faster - i didnt expect anyone to actually do anything with the image 🙂 Can you tell me why i need to convert to a vector mask ? And thank you for taking the time to explain this.

[davescm]

If you convert the path to a vector mask it remains an editable path i.e. you can go back and adjust the paths if you missed anything.

[merkk]

do you happen to know of any tutorials that demonstrate what you are doing? I'm doing something wrong since I don't get the option to convert to a vector mask. I'm going to try and just clean up the images I already have using the brush tool since they are about 90% of the way done. Mainly just the sections with the legs or hoses that need to be cleaned up since the quick selection cut parts of them off. Thank you again

[davescm]

Makke sure your pen tool is set in the options bar to make a path. When done - double click on the mask symbol at the bottom of the paths panel.

Try this by ACP Mike Hoffman http://www.hoffmanartdesign.com/2014/03/mastering-the-pen-tool-in-photoshop/

Dave

[Chuck Uebele]

Like the others said: the pen tool. I used to do tons of photos like that (aircraft landing gear). Used the pen tool.