Removing background from images

[Alex Ross]

I am finding this too hard, I googled and found some companies that do this sort of thing, has anyone tried them? Is clipping path the same as deepetching. deepetch.com seems to be one good one, I also saw rapidclipping.com/Photoshop_clipping/home.htm and ezyclipping.com. Has anyone had any experience with this sort of thing. My catalog has over 300 images of jewelery and jackets with fur fitted on manequins due in two weeks, all shot on a blue studio background. Do I require alpha channel masking? Can anyone help please?

 

[MICKEY88]

could you post a picture so we can see exactly what you are trying to remove..

 

[Experiment_626]

My catalog has over 300 images of jewelery and jackets with fur

Yikes! It's that fur that will likely mean your only practical solution is going to be specialized software -- either a Photoshop plug-in or a stand-alone application (some programs can be run either way with the same results).

due in two weeks

Double yikes! Given the time crunch, I'd say that makes it even more likely that your only sane answer is specialized software. I'd expect that it would make things go much faster.

It is more-or-less possible to do this with Photoshop alone, but each image will pose unique challenges -- which means lots of time to do it right. I haven't heard of the products you mention, and I've never had to do this on anything approaching this scale, but I'd stick with the major products that I know exist. Sorry I can't think of their names at the moment, but I'll try to find them later if I can.

Of course, if you were the Alex Ross (you aren't that Alex Ross, are you?), I'd suggest just painting all the images!

SSB

 

[deletedpenguin]

As a visual effects artist, I can say that there are a number of "compositing programs" that you could use that would do a good job (not great). Even a program like After Effects could do this for you, with relatively good results. Of course, it's dependent on how different the lighting/background was on each photo. You could (emphasis on could) theoretically import all photos as a sequence (TGA, TIF, etc.), do a relatively good chroma key blue screen extraction and then export them again as a sequence, thereby keeping the file structure in tact.

I hope this makes sense.