Project 13: Selecting an Object

After playing around with the example image for this project, I chose a suitable photograph of my own. I picked this one, of a small ammonite (it’s about the size of a 10p coin):

I altered the tolerance levels of the magic wand a few times, before settling on 25. Any higher than this, and the lighter areas at the edge of the ammonite became selected too.

 Here is the top edge of the ammonite, after I filled the area selected by the magic wand with black:

As you can see, the selection has a rough edge, and there are some small spots of the background that were too dark to be selected.

Here is the bottom edge:

Oh dear! My choice of image, which was shot handheld using the inbuilt flash, was clearly a poor choice for this project, as it has resulted in harsh highlights on the fossil and a dark shadow underneath. However, I decided to persevere.

To remove the shadow, I used the Quick Selection tool. I then ran a black paintbrush over the remaining grey areas in the background.

This is a much quicker method that the laborious one that I usually use – zooming in to 200%, working my way around the edges of the object with the polygonal lasso tool (or magnetic lasso if contrast is sufficient), then removing the background in sections. However, even after feathering the edges slightly, there were some noticeably poor areas in the isolation. I found this fairly easy to rectify using the eraser tool, but as with my other method, this made the process time consuming.

Here is my finished isolation, with both black and white backgrounds:

At full resolution, I think (hope!) it stands up to close scrutiny, so I’m happy with that. :)

I can’t resist a challenge!

The course materials mention that hair, fur and vegetation are particularly difficult. How about feathers? Easier than fur, I imagine, but not as straightforward as the ammonite above.

Here is the original image:

Here is my isolated version:

Close-up of the head:

It’s not perfect – the transition between feathers and white does not look completely natural.The most difficult part was the soft feathery part around the legs:

For these areas, I used a soft edged eraser, then used the ‘smudge’ tool to pull some of the feathers out into the white area. I definitely need a bit more practice with this, but I feel quite pleased with this attempt.