Inspiring

Question

Selecting from nearly identical background color

Forum|Forum|6 years ago
August 10, 2019
3 replies
589 views

I have an image with a background that is less than a tolerance of 1 different (in places) from the things I am selecting. I have viewed many, many videos about selection and none help me.

I can see the distinctions with the naked eye (e.g. in the first image, there are places where the edges between a cream colored mannequin neck is against a cream colored background, but the distinction, however tiny, enables me to see the margin. Photoshop does not seem to like as subtle a distinction?

I have tried:

Both quick selection and magic wand tool

Refine selection (this is tricky because the selections are filled with black at about layer 15 and the Background Eraser Tool does not seem to pull from the Background image (I assume it is supposed to come from the first layer Background image since it's called Background Eraser Tool??)

magnet tool (for more specific areas.)

Grow and contract selections

Erasers, background eraser, layer masks, to restore parts of the image that have been selected that in fact should remain (e.g. a selection includes one side of a leg when that side must remain in the original.

Selection with a tolerance as low as 1.

I am using Photoshop CC 2019 on a powerful PC with excellent graphics card (if that matters).

I am attaching both the original and a masked copy with my many hours of selection efforts, isolated. As you will see, sections of the selection are missing.

As many have noted on this forum, there are numerous videos about selection which seem to focus on hair, and things on contrasting color backgrounds (e.g. blonde hair on dark solid background)

This topic has been closed for replies.

Norman Sanders

Legend

Please click on the image to see the enlarged view.)

The posted image is misleading in that it is about 3000 x 4000 pixels in size. When it is brought to 100% or (as above) 200% view, similar tones show more difference than in the displayed size. At that point, if a duplicate layer was made and increased in contrast, Pen accurately would be increased substantially. To demonstrate: This is a selection (note the marching ants) made with the Quick Selection tool. Not perfect but proof of tone separation impossible in the posted original. Bottom line: I recommend enlarging the view to 200% before working with the Pen Tool.

JJMack

Community Expert

If you lookind for an automate selection you need to find some way to make Photosho displaye the image whih cause the background to have great contrast with the images subject. You need to create contast to be able to select the background.

JJMack

B

berylv10067773Author

Inspiring

I did try increasing the contrast, sharpening the edges, and a variety of tools to impact the delineation in color but they were not adequate to the task...:(

JJMack

Community Expert

It is not always possible. Sometimes even there is no separation in areas the human mind does the separation for it has knowledge of the objects in the scene. So it knows the shapes and can imagine the separation when there is none. In these case you can use the pen and vector tools to make a selection that will work well. You make the selection manually.

JJMack

Mohammad.Harb

Community Expert

If you are looking for a very very precise selection, nothing can give you a superior result like PEN tool .

use the pen tool, convert path to selection

then use refine seletion

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