Expert: Glen Demers - 7/30/2010

Question
Hi Glen,

Thank you very much for the info on composing an image. I am still working with Photoshop 7. But, now I have a question on the extracting the image. Now I have tried this and I have tried this several times, my question is what would happen if you make a mistake on outlining the image?  I mean there is no undoing the last action on this part or is there? And you said that I can zoom in or enlarge the image for small areas. And you would get to outline the image perfect, right?

Oh and when you outline an image do you get real close to the edges of the image without touching the image or get on the edges of the image? The reason I am asking this question is that I have outlined the very edge(s) of the image but, it seems though and it really happened the edges of the image was gone I should say or let me put it this way there seemed and there was no edges to the image cause it was eliminated with the background. So I guess my question on asking if I should get to the very edge(s) of the image is out or maybe I am doing something wrong I would say, but do you figure? I mean if this is not working out then I am doing something wrong I figure don’t you?

And when I got close to the edges without touching the image I would have to use the background eraser to remove the rest of the edge(s), I mean the background to the edges of the image. What would you suggest on this from what I have asked? Thank you, Glen I would appreciate this and as I have appreciated your help from the past. Again, thank you.

Sincerely yours,

Martin C. Meyer

Answer
Hi Martin,

When using the Extract highlighter you go over the edge. Once the entire image has been edged with the highlighter, then you can fill it and preview.

If the edge is very well defined, you can go over it with a small brush, for fuzzy edges use a bigger highlighter brush to cover all the fuzzy area and let the software determine the edge. The trick is to have the edge inside the highlighted area.

Two things to always do when using the Extract Filter are to preview and fix the mask before extracting and always work on a copy of the background layer. Once you extract the image and notice something is missing, you can always clone it back in from the original background layer. Before going to Extract I always hit Layer via copy and work on the copy.

Hope this helps,
Glen Demers
Adobe Certified Expert, Photoshop 7
Prepress Technician, Best Printing Online
www.bestprintingonline.com

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