I am having a go at image editing... I suck basically.
First off, how are you people getting such accurate cuts of people?
Secondly, how do I work with layers?
I am trying to get an image of a woman cut from the original background to add to another one
' Wrote:I am having a go at image editing... I suck basically.
First off, how are you people getting such accurate cuts of people?
Secondly, how do I work with layers?
I am trying to get an image of a woman cut from the original background to add to another one
well lets see, GIMP... First off you need to get the background layer to have an alpha channel (go up to layer, add alpha channel) now this layer is capable of being transparent. After that all you need is patience. There are a number of ways to acurately cut out something from the BG, none are easy. Depending on the background (if it's straight white its easier that complex backgrounds), you can either erase the background with the eraser tool, or you can select the background using the wand tool, or the various eliptical and rectangular selects. you can also delve into quickmasking. I've forgotten the GIMP shortcut but essentially it allows you to paint over what you want to select, this takes a while but i think that it yields some of the best results.
If the BG is straight white (or any other color) use the wand tool and select the background, you may need to use eliptical select to reclaim some odd bits of the render that blend with the BG but apart from that it should grab it all. now this part is important, go to selection, grow. enter in one (1) pixel and his enter. now you can delete the selection. Without that step there's "residue" of the color on the background left around the render.
The best way is to mess around and figure out what works best for you. As it is with GIMP overall... There are some awesome tutorials to get you familiar with the GIMP interphase. gimptalk.com is the main site for them i believe.
Ok I have managed to erase the background using the steps you mentioned, now when I try to cut the image of the person it wont do anything
once you have the background aroung your person transparent (should look like a checkerboard) then press Ctrl-A to select the entire picture, then Ctrl-C will copy it, open the progect you want it in and Ctrl-V will paste it, but instead of having a selection the size of the entire origional picture, it will just be the parts of it that were not transparent. then I believe Ctrl-T will alow you to move and resize it (but that may only be in PS).
Note: If you are resizing something and want to keep the aspect ratio (height/width ratio) then hold Shift while resizing.
' Wrote:Ok I have managed to erase the background using the steps you mentioned, now when I try to cut the image of the person it wont do anything
what do you mean when you try to cut the image? to move it from one image to another either use the copy and paste method Jazz stated or drag the layer you want to copy to the new image you want it to be in.
' Wrote:Note: If you are resizing something and want to keep the aspect ratio (height/width ratio) then hold Shift while resizing.
yeah, not with GIMP i don't think, its more tricky than PS, you need to link the two dimentions in the popup window that comes out when you hit scale (that may only be in the older versions that I used though, try SHIFT and see if it works...)