Different Tools Needed for Different Solutions-Photoshop

Saturday, December 22, 2012
Official Start of Winter

Different Tools Needed for Different Solutions

(Photoshop)

Introduction

     Photoshop doesn't always work well, or the way you want it to. Read any book, go to the Adobe site, YouTube, blogs and you always see every tool working perfectly!  That just doesn't happen. The other issue is that none of the above ever tell you which tool is best for each job. 

    Personally, I used to think that any of the tools were good for any job, but that just isn't so. With experience, you get to realize that most of the tools will eventually do the job. The question then  is just how much time are you willing to spend with each tool? 

    A good example is making a selection. There are several different tools for doing this job, and some work well for some jobs, while others work better for other jobs. AS well, Photoshop always offers solutions if you make a mistake, or Photoshop makes a mistake. The example below will help illustrate what I'm discussing.

 Similar Photos but Needing 2 Different Solutions

A 1930's Barclay Toy Slush Sedan

 A 1930's Set of Tootsietoy Die-cast Toy cars

   The 2 photos above would appear to have similar characteristics when it comes to removing the toy or toys from the background.  Both have contrasting colours and both are sitting on the same burlap material. Visually, to the eye, they look like you could use 1 tool for both to remove that foundation. Photoshop-wise or mathematically via the program, certain colours that appear differently to the eye, are very similar in Photoshop. As a result, the 6 toy set is more difficult, not so much because of the different colours, but because certain tones (bare metal, and adjacent brown burlap, and orange cars do not separate well from each other!  

 A few minutes work with the magic wand.

It's not perfect, but it works well

I then set the magic wand to "-" to remove ares that shouldn;t have been selected.

Again, this works well.

The next step is to use "align edges"

That also works very well, and only takes a few minutes.

Make sure to magnify the photo - that works much easier!

 The result before removal of the burlap

It's not perfect, but the magic wand was the right tool for the job!

A few more minutes,nd the tiny specs will be removed.

     On the other hand, the photo of the 6 cars would not work with any selection. I tried layers, I tried mask, channel masks, I tried the magic wand, and  the  quick selection tool, and different settings, and nothing worked well!

I used the polygonal  lasso tool instead of my favourite - the magnetic lasso tool.

It's faster, and I could always  smooth out and align the edges, even if using the "linear" lasso tool.

 You can see above that the magic wand  is capturing some of the bare metal,even though the 2 tonal values are very different to the eye!

 The numerical values for the bare metal

 The numerical values for the burlap material foundation

I could have used the magic wand or the quick selection tool, then add and subtract, bnut that would have taken too long. In the end, I just used the polygonal lasso tool then smoothed and refined the edges. That was faster, although I had to "select each car" by using the "+" polygonal lasso tool.

 The 6 cars on burlap

The 6 cars on a white background with "drop shadows"


Conclusion

     All resources on Photoshop are good, but you can't assume that every example with every tool works perfectly. Take the resources as sources of learning, and use several different resources. The use a tool that was explained to you or that you best understood and work with it. If that tool doesn't work, try another. 

   Eventually through your own experiences, you will then understand what I'm saying. You'll know how tools work,and what works best for you. In the example with the 6 cars, I even tried to blur  and smudge, and even place the background out-of-focus.  These techniques all worked well because the burlap tones blended into 1 similar tone. The trouble there was  having to get close to all 6 cars to do the blurring. It was faster and simply easier just to select each of the 6 cars with the polygonal magic lasso.

Thanks for visiting, and have a great weekend shopping for Christmas, wherever you may be.

And if you donl;t celebrate Christmas, then have a great day anyway!

Stacey