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Author Topic: masking an object with background color  (Read 5777 times)

meshmixup

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masking an object with background color
« on: June 26, 2014, 11:32:48 AM »
Hello,

Currently I am using background masking function of PS to pick the object images and manually adjust the mask area to avoid missing details. It works great when the object has different color from the background (white). But when someone is wearing a white color t-shirt, it will spend me hours to fix it. No matter how I adjust the threshold, it won't give a good result. Can anyone share how you deal with this situation? Thanks a lot  :)

chadfx

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Re: masking an object with background color
« Reply #1 on: June 26, 2014, 07:39:45 PM »
Welcome to the wonderful world of extractions...if your foreground is a similar color as the background, you are almost always going to have a difficult time separating the two. You will likely need to hand trace (rotoscope) the edges that the software cannot detect. You can try using more sophisticated extraction tools/plugins in something like Nuke, After Effects or Photoshop...but similar colors will almost always be a challenge.

Sorry, and good luck! 

-C

Lambo

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Re: masking an object with background color
« Reply #2 on: June 26, 2014, 08:04:54 PM »
Yes as Chadfx said, that is everybody's pain :(  I just had to shoot someone that had a black and white camo jacket and it was pretty difficult to spot the areas that were not covered with the mask since the whole jacket blended with the background.
Photoshop can do a faster job of masking manually, you could do the masks there and just import them into PS later.
Leo

meshmixup

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Re: masking an object with background color
« Reply #3 on: June 26, 2014, 08:13:33 PM »
Hello,

Really there is no easy way.... I also use masking by model and redo the photo alignment. But the mask generated always mask out the rim of the object which I need to adjust manually again.  :(


Lambo

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Re: masking an object with background color
« Reply #4 on: June 26, 2014, 09:18:39 PM »
Do you want to send a sample of the pictures to see if we can find out an easier or more accurate way of masking?