How should I cut out people on bicycles with a background of a forest?

[acfd86]

Dear Everyone,

I have an image of three people on bicycles in a forest - I need to cut the people/bicycles out of the background for use in a photo collage. Since the nooks and crannies in and around the bicycle are so small, I am not sure that even the pen tool is the best method to use. What do you suggest?

Thanks so much!!
Chava Drummond

[TPF Sponsor]

[O|||||||O]

Can you go back and take a picture without people riding bikes through it? That would be the easiest way...

Can you post the picture that needs the people edited out?

Also, what software do you have?

[acfd86]

Dear Josh,

Thanks so very much for responding! No, it's not possible to redo the picture.... The forum is not allowing me to post a link, but imagine three people standing close together, straddling their bicycles, in the middle of a forest. I'm working with Photoshop CS4.

Thanks!!
Chava

[O|||||||O]

I think you need 5 posts to post links...

How much of the frame do they take up? Or, I guess what I mean is - how much of the forest are they covering up?

[MichiganFarts]

Wait...which part did you want for the collage? The forest part, or the people and bikes part?

[Destin]

Wait...which part did you want for the collage? The forest part, or the people and bikes part?

I would assume the people and bikes from the way he words it, and a tad bit of common sense. who wants a forest with the shape of people on bikes cut out of it for a collage? lol

[O|||||||O]

Wait...which part did you want for the collage? The forest part, or the people and bikes part?

Wow, I totally misread the OP.

OK, you want to cut the people out and use that...?

For some reason I was thinking you wanted to basically clone the people out and have a shot of just the forest...

Sorry about that

[MichiganFarts]

Wait...which part did you want for the collage? The forest part, or the people and bikes part?

I would assume the people and bikes from the way he words it, and a tad bit of common sense. who wants a forest with the shape of people on bikes cut out of it for a collage? lol

I know...I just wanted to make sure I wasn't the one misreading the post . But it could make a cool effect if you just silhoutted the bikers, and kept the background? maybe...lol

I only wondered 'cause the OP didn't correct him.

[Destin]

Wait...which part did you want for the collage? The forest part, or the people and bikes part?

I would assume the people and bikes from the way he words it, and a tad bit of common sense. who wants a forest with the shape of people on bikes cut out of it for a collage? lol

I know...I just wanted to make sure I wasn't the one misreading the post . But it could make a cool effect if you just silhoutted the bikers, and kept the background? maybe...lol

hahah ya never know. I've seen people to stranger things.

And as far as cutting them out. Quick mask, and a SMALL paintbrush maybe? it's gonna take a lot of tedious work.

[Patm1313]

We really need to see a picture, so get your posts up so you can post a link. I'm assuming that your using at least a 3000x2000 pixel image, but I could be far off. If this is the case, however, then I would imagine that the bikers are big enough that you could use a path to pull out a selection. If this is not the case, then I am going to go with the mask and the paintbrush tool. Either way, there's no easy way to go about selecting intricate objects with an intricate background, or atleast that I know of.

When you can get the picture up we'll be of a lot more help.

[Destin]

We really need to see a picture, so get your posts up so you can post a link. I'm assuming that your using at least a 3000x2000 pixel image, but I could be far off. If this is the case, however, then I would imagine that the bikers are big enough that you could use a path to pull out a selection. If this is not the case, then I am going to go with the mask and the paintbrush tool. Either way, there's no easy way to go about selecting intricate objects with an intricate background, or atleast that I know of.

When you can get the picture up we'll be of a lot more help.

I'm a photoshop noob myself. Mind telling me how to use a path as a selection tool? Paths aren't something I've explored yet...

[Patm1313]

We really need to see a picture, so get your posts up so you can post a link. I'm assuming that your using at least a 3000x2000 pixel image, but I could be far off. If this is the case, however, then I would imagine that the bikers are big enough that you could use a path to pull out a selection. If this is not the case, then I am going to go with the mask and the paintbrush tool. Either way, there's no easy way to go about selecting intricate objects with an intricate background, or atleast that I know of.

When you can get the picture up we'll be of a lot more help.

I'm a photoshop noob myself. Mind telling me how to use a path as a selection tool? Paths aren't something I've explored yet...

Let's see here... I have to apologize, I can't give you a very detailed answer, as I haven't had photoshop since my last computer with CS4 (and, I might add, all of my photos) crashed.

If you're using PS, but not paths, in my oppinion you're only granting yourself very small access to a very expensive product.

But, I digress. To use paths, click on that tool in the toolbar that looks like a pen. This is the paths tool. You will learn to love it. If you've ever used the curve tool in MS paint, you have a basic idea of how paths work. There's two anchor points, and you manipulate a curve between them. In Photoshop you place your starting anchor point, by left clicking. You then proceed to place other anchor points around the area you want to select. You can either A. Place your anchor points around the image one at a time, leftclicking whilst holding the mouse button down to manipulate to each curve. -or- B. You can place all of the anchor points at once, and then go back with the convert anchor point tool (hold down ctrl on windows, command on Macs, I believe) and select each anchor point to manipulate the curves adjacent to it. Then open the paths interface, select the path, and click on the circle at the bottom of the interface that is made of a dotted line. This is the "path to selection" button and will make a selection from your path. Then you can use this selection to do what you want.

To be honest, you'll just have to toy around with it a bit, I haven't used PS much recently at all, so I can't tell you exactly how to do it.

[Quality]

Dear Everyone,

I have an image of three people on bicycles in a forest - I need to cut the people/bicycles out of the background for use in a photo collage. Since the nooks and crannies in and around the bicycle are so small, I am not sure that even the pen tool is the best method to use. What do you suggest?

Thanks so much!!
Chava Drummond

Adobe is the father… If your pixels are lower than 100, try using quick mask back on off 100+ just use filter and eraser… 100px lower “quick mask mode” for the appearance; just manipulate all other missing structures. Does it help? Maybe…

Cheerzzz

[NielsSw]

in my experience there are usually more than 2 ways to do something in photoshop. Post the picture and we can try various ways.

[Village Idiot]

We really need to see a picture, so get your posts up so you can post a link. I'm assuming that your using at least a 3000x2000 pixel image, but I could be far off. If this is the case, however, then I would imagine that the bikers are big enough that you could use a path to pull out a selection. If this is not the case, then I am going to go with the mask and the paintbrush tool. Either way, there's no easy way to go about selecting intricate objects with an intricate background, or atleast that I know of.

When you can get the picture up we'll be of a lot more help.

I'm a photoshop noob myself. Mind telling me how to use a path as a selection tool? Paths aren't something I've explored yet...

What the pen tool does is to allow you to draw a line over top of the image that is not bound by pixels and can be turned into a path to make a selection. The other selection tools in photo shop are bound by pixels, which cam often times not give you the shape you're looking for when trying to select items to cut, copy, mask, etc... The pen tool is easily the one tool that I feel has really helped me out since learning and allowed me greater editing freedom. Often when using the quick selection tool, I was getting inaccurate selections on items that had low contrast between the areas I needed selecting or with complicated lines.