That Polygonal Lasso Tool 2

[gcaluna13]

Hi all,


CS/3 ~

When I'm slowly tracing contours of an object, the screen wigs out on me. Why?

Example: I'm outlining a football, going very slow so as to create the perfect football shape (hate the pen tool - rather lasso and create a new object). Anyhow, if I trace the football quickly, no problem, but If I take my time and stall a bit (for accuracy), the screen goes white until I click off screen somewhere. My whole original image disappears!!! No football. grrrrr.....

Any ideas?
Is it supposed to time out for some other "shift" function when you purposely stall? I don't understand why it does it only when I take my time vs. time delay drawing.

Thanks,
Luna13

 

[kiddpete]

I'm not sure why it does that either. One tactic is to always be at a point where you can close the selection shape by hitting enter. If it whites out under that condition, you can press enter to get the screen back.

Here's another way. Draw a rough selection. Then enter Quik Mask and refine the selection to your hearts content. When done, just exit Quik Mask and you will have your selection.

 

[gcaluna13]

Thanks.

Well at least I'm not going crazy and other people have the same issues.

Can you give me a brief description on how to use quik mask the way I'm requesting it? also, it that opposed to a slow mask or fine mask?
How do you enter quik mask?

 

[mscallisto]

When using the poly lasso tool, for accuracy and speed I would blow up the football size 3 or 4 times (using the zoom tool) to give me a larger area to lasso.

This method allows me to click along the shape in smaller increments for better accuracy.

Since most of the image is hidden, as you click along the edge it will automatically shift in the direction you are going.

When you have completed the capture simply use the zoom tool in reverse to see the outlined football.

BTW there are many many other ways to trace contours.

sam

 

[kiddpete]

Quik Mask: there is a little icon that looks like a camera at the bottom of the tool bar. Click it to enter Quik Mask. Click it again to exit. Or, just type a Q.

You have to have an active selection before it will work. Within Quik Mask, you use the brush tool to make changes to the selection.

 

[mscallisto]

Filter > Extract Can be very handy

see a tutorial

http://av.adobe.com/russellbrown/Extracting_Monster_SM.mov

you will need Apple QuickTime to view the demo

QuickTime can be downloaded from here:

http://www.russellbrown.com/tips_tech.html

sam

 

[gcaluna13]

Thanks for the tutorial Sam.
Good extraction tool tips. He's no Donnie Hoyle with that sense of humor of his, but he gives a good demonstration.

What are the key differences between using "mask" and "filter / extract" ?

 

[mscallisto]

I mostly choose my method depending on the picture, after a while you can quickly spot the easy vs the difficult extractions and choose a method accordingly.

Here is a nice site that shows the 5 most common methods and explains the differences.

http://www.sitepoint.com/print/masking-techniques-photoshop/

as I said there are still more methods available in PShop and many times you may need to use multiple methods for a single extraction.

I have another russellbrown demo (somewhere)that extracts hair almost perfectly. It uses the picture itself as a mask.
I try to find it for you.

sam

 

[mscallisto]

Found it ... see my post on thread229-1205033

good luck

sam

 

[gcaluna13]

Sam- If you look at that monster tutorial (your first exapmle), go to the portion of the video where he talks about the history brush and adding the background back into the image. Mine just erases the image of that layer (like the erase tool -monster fades revealing background from castle colors instead of revealing the original monster image background (grayish area). Any ideas there?

I'll check out the other vid as well...
Thanks,
Luna13

 

[gcaluna13]

Oh wait, You would have had to click to the left of the history box before you begin. Got it now.