How to adjust or refine Selection of Select Background or Select Subject Features

[Riverman17]

I recently purchased Adobe Photoshop Elements 2024, in part for its inclusion of the option to auto select backgrounds and subjects. I tried out the feature recently after photographing several model boats at our local maritime museum, and was disappointed in the results. The Select Background and Select Subject tools would outline the boat model but sometimes did not include the base or stand (or all of it) it rested upon, outline the boat model but not include the rudder and propeller (it followed the hull outline), outlined the leading edge of the sail but missed the mast stay line just ahead of it or jumped between the two halfway down the sail, would get very confused by models with rigging but no sails (select part of a rigging line and then jump to another and reverse direction), etc. My question for the community is, "Is there a way to refine a segment or portion of the selection once the program has performed its automated selection in Photoshop Elements 24?" Two screenshot examples are attached. Thank you.

Riverman17

[Jeff Arola]

Hard to tell from your screenshots how much actual background is visible, but instead of using Select Subject, in your case maybe the Magic Wand Tool would do better.

[Riverman17]

Thanks for your suggestion, Jeff. The photographs were taken against a black, foam material which is why the background appears black, as I wanted it to. The foam had some folds or creases in it which are quite visible in the unedited photo, including behind the masts and rigging lines. If one looks behind the main mast and just ahead of the bow, one can see the folds.  I have made those less visible by darkening the image (decreasing brightness) but this also necessarily decreased the brightness of the ship also, which is why I wanted to select the subject, cut it out from a duplicate mask, and then add it on to a solid (black) fill layer. That was my thinking anyhow. That did not work particularly well using the Select Subject or Select Background tools, as I posted initially. Unfortunately, the Magic Wand Tool seems worse. It selects only a portion of the hull or masts or base, based from what I've read, upon color and tone. See attached screen capture image (Screenshot(1) using the Magic Wand Tool. There are multiple colors and shades of those colors present on any given ship. It would be considerable more work to expand the area of selection using the Add to Selection and Subtract from Selection features of this tool. I also have tried selecting just the black background only with the Magic Wand Tool, which did a better job overall, but still missed the entire boom (oblique mast behind the main one) and most of the upper edge of the port (left) side of the boat and sections of the rigging lines. Image of this also attached. Either I, or Photoshop Elements 24, is not up to this task at this point. I am open to any additional suggestions you or others may have and will give them a try. Thank you.

[Greg_S.]

When you used the Magic Wand Tool to select the black background (which is what Jeff was suggesting, I think), did you change the tolerance?  Your screenshots show a tolerance level over 30.  Perhaps reduce the tolerance to single digits since the background is a fairly pure black. 

If you are not satisfied with the results, with either the subject or the background selections, you always have the option to add to the automatic selection using either the Magic Wand Tool or the Quick Selection brush.  As Jeff says, it is difficult to see exactly what is happening with your image from a screenshot which has become somewhat low resolution.  If you attach an original image file rather than a screenshot, we may have some more helpful suggestions.

[Riverman17]

I did not reduce the tolerance. It was left at 34, I recall. Per your suggestion, I have attached copies of the original uncropped and unedited pictures. They were acquired in RAW format (NEF - Nikon Electronic Format which are relatively large files). I exported the NEF files as higher quality JPGs with no alteration. One can see the black foam backdrop against which they were taken, the folds and wrinkles in it, as well as the model ships and the black base of the boat "Princess". I am open to any further suggestions. Thank you.

[Greg_S.]

So, I don't think there is an easy automatic way to make the selection with either the subject or background selection choices.  But it is not too difficult to make a selection using the Magic Wand tool to select the black background and the Quick Selection tool to clean it up.  I would suggest using the contiguous setting for the Magic Wand.  You will then have to zoom in and select each section of the black background that appears through small cutouts of the boat.  (I used a tolerance level of 17 which seemed to work quite well.

When using the Quick Selection tool (to both add and subtract from the selection) it is necessary to zoom in very close in some places.  And you also need to reduce the size of the selection brush to one or two pixels in places.  For example, the area around the tackle (?):

I also played around with the contrast using Levels to brighten some of the non-background black areas.  And finally, I used the Refine Selection tool to display the boat selected on a white background to make sure all of the ropes were included.  Hope this helps.

I probably spent less than 5 minutes each making the following output from your samples.  If you spend a little more time, I'm sure you could improve on the result.