Photo Extraction, where I am at...

[Patrice Lemée]

Thanks to all the good advice from you guys I am getting better at extracting a picture cleanly.



This was done on a green background and as you said, unless I lift the knife off the background and light both separately (I can't do that with my limited setup) I get a green tint on some of the knife edges. I shot a few other on different gray backgrounds so I'll see how that goes. But I am already happy as this is cleaner than I've ever done. A few things I have to figure out now:

1. Getting good at drop shadows. It is a very hard thing to make them look realistic.
2. I'd like to darken parts of the background like Mr. Darom does but I am having a hard time figuring out how to do it. I am not asking for trade secrets or anything but any pointing in the right direction would be greatly appreciated.

Thanks again for being so generous in sharing your know how guys, much appreciated.

PS: The only bad part is that I have an older (6 years) laptop with a single core processor and more importantly, a limited amount of memory. (1GB) I am running Linux so it was enough for everything I did until now. Faster than most Windo$ laptops and even on par or faster than some Mac$. But now, working with large pictures, is when the low memory is really making a difference.

[chrisa62401]

Here is a thread o a photography forum I have been following. Different subject matter, but the same effect. You have to be a member to view this, but it's well worth it.

http://photography-on-the.net/forum/...ghlight=Studio

[Patrice Lemée]

Thanks Chris, I've registered. Just waiting for the activation.

[SharpByCoop]

1: Grey background = neutral. You will get better results with no color hue.

2. Lifted objects NEED a good shadow. I have found the embedded Photoshop drop shadow very sterile. Ugghh. It is exactly parallel to the object, which is not always the case.

Long ago I learned to make a duplicate of the object layer, fill it with black, then use Filters to blur it, and then transform/reshape it, and change opacity as a layer.

3. There are several ways to have gradient backgrounds. One is to use the Gradient tool in PS, and another one is to simply use a large 'Burning' brush in the Dodge and burn toolbar. I use both methods.

Here's examples where I used all of the above. I rarely do this, but when I do, it's fun!





Hope this starts the process for you. There is no one better at this than Dr. Darom, but I offer what I've done.

Coop

[Patrice Lemée]

Thanks Jim, that's exactly the info I needed and more than enough to get me started in the right direction. I use Gimp myself but commands are very similar. Here is just a little something I did with your instructions. Of course it's not perfect and I still have a long way to go but considering it only took about 10 minutes I am as happy as a pig in mud.



Again, I can't thank you enough for teaching me how to fish.