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How to make the background perfectly white? 4

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qwert85103

Technical User
Dec 27, 2003
162
US
you must have seen websites which display photos of products with perfectly white background.

how is that done.

Thanks
 
They might be simple cutouts with the background removed.

Or, if you have an image with a light background but it's not quite white, try this.
Open the image, create an adjustment layer for "curves".
You'll see a graph.
Depending on your colour mode, grab the point at the "light" end of the graph and move it, note what happens.

Basically the graph shows values in -> values out.
So where you have, say 5% you want to make it 0% (i.e. no colour)

Note that this will change you WHOLE image, so if you have light areas that are similar to your background, you will effect those too.

It's hard to explain like this so if you need any more help, just ask!

Foamcow Heavy Industries - Web design and ranting
Toccoa Games - Day of Defeat gaming community
Target Marketing Communications - Advertising, Direct Marketing and Public Relations
"I'm making time
 
Also very likely that those websites have had good professional product photography done. High Key product photography is very common. (product photo on all white background with little/no shadow).

Wow JT that almost looked like you knew what you were doing!
 
Hello Foamcow,

I am really a beginner when it comes to graphics/photoshop.
Could you please tell the steps involved in little bit more detail.

I will really appreciate your help.

Thanks in advance for the help.
 
You could also use your pen tool to create a path around your image then simply mask it. Works good and is fairly easy, provided you make a tight path around the desired image.

Hope that helps a bit. :)
 
Hi,

Sorry, only just got back to this thread.

OK, using the curves.
It's kind of hard to explain, so you might be able to work it out just by fiddling with them.

First off, lets work with a greyscale image (so we only have to worry about 1 channel).


Get your image open in photoshop (convert it to greyscale if its colour).[/li]

So we don't destroy the original image, we will do this with an adjustment layer. So make an adjustment layer (Layer -> New adjustment layer -> Curves). Click OK.[/li]

You should see a panel like this
gsCurves1.jpg

Look at the White to Black bar underneath the graph. Make sure it's as show (with white to the left). If it's not, click the arrows in the middle of the bar.[/li]

Now an explanation of what the curve means.
The vertical axis of the graph represents the level of grey within the image. The horizontal represents the level of grey after the curve has been applied.
So at the bottom left of the line we have 0% input = 0% output and at the top right of the line 100% input = 100% output, like so...
gsCurves2.jpg


Now click in the middle of this line
Following the logic, at 50% input we have 50% output. It's a straight line after all.
gsCurves3.jpg


Now if we drag the 50% point down...
gsCurves4.jpg

We have 50% input but we are telling photoshop to make it 30% output. You can enter the required values in the little boxes if you want.

The curve, or more accurately, the gradation curve, effects the image it is applied to. Most importantly it effects the image smoothly based on the curve. So when we make 50% into 40%, it means that at 70% we around 53%. Even more important is that the darkest (100%) areas are still 100% and the lightest (0%) areas are still 0%. This retains a nice level of contrast in the image and avoids it looking "flat".

Ok, so using this technique we can "drop the background" out of an image by moving the 0% output point of the line across so that, say, at 25% input we have 0% output.
]

This has the effect of making any point of the image that is 25% appear as 0%.

You can place more than 1 point on the curve and drag it to set multiple points. This allows you to accurately control how the image will look. Lighter in some areas, darker in others.

If you completely reverse the direction of the line, then you effectively inverse the image.

Hope that helps a bit. Play with it and you will quickly understand it.


Bearing all that in mind. It might NOT be the solution for you! It's only going to work if there are no areas in your image that are of a similar tone to the background. I am sure you can see why.

You may be better off using the pen tool.
Draw an accurate clipping path
Use that path to make a selection, perhaps feather it slightly
Then either delete the background, or better still apply a masking layer to it.

Foamcow Heavy Industries - Web design and ranting
Toccoa Games - Day of Defeat gaming community
Target Marketing Communications - Advertising, Direct Marketing and Public Relations
"I'm making time
 
EDIT:

The horizontal axis represents the INPUT level
The vertical axis represents the OUTPUT level


Also...
to apply this to a colour image you just do the same thing, either to all channels at once, or on an individual channel basis. The curve pallete for a colour image has a pull down list to let you select which channel's curve you are working with.

Foamcow Heavy Industries - Web design and ranting
Toccoa Games - Day of Defeat gaming community
Target Marketing Communications - Advertising, Direct Marketing and Public Relations
"I'm making time
 
I love the curves pallette. :)

Wow JT that almost looked like you knew what you were doing!
 
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