I often have to remove complicated backgrounds from photos where the subject of the photo is also complicated themselves. Dark/light parts of the subject are over dark/light parts of the background, the subject has long, thin tentacles, antennae, or somewhat transparent appendages coming off of them, parts of the subject that are closer to the camera are nice and in-focus, while parts that are further away are fuzzy, etc., etc. Most tutorials I find about "difficult" background removals usually have the subjects on pretty plain backgrounds that they stand in pretty stark contrast to. And the "difficulty" comes from the subject having curly hair or something.
Here's an example of what I'm working with:
I'm trying to remove the background from around this coconut crab. Usually, I start off with using "Select Subject" and then use the Quick Selection Tool to add/subtract parts of the selection. That's not working great here, though, as the Quick Selection Tool keeps grabbing chunks of shadow and treebark when I try to add to the selection, or unselecting entire legs when I subtract from it. And the head is...just not happening loll.
I've also tried using Calculations, but the dark parts of the crab blend in too much with the shadows and the light parts blend in too much with the tree bark when I start adjusting the values.
What I normally do in cases like this is I just do my best with Select Subject/Quick Selection Tool, then spend A LOT of time manually painting the Layer Mask until I finally get rid of the the background.
If it is my fate to spend the rest of my days removing backgrounds this way, then so be it, but I just wanted to check to see if there's perhaps an easier way to do this. So, does anyone have any recommendations for a good background removal tutorial? Thanks!
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In a case like this I would recommend using Paths for at least parts of the masking.
But some parts of the edges may need manual decontamination.
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