[cameo]

Can anyone offer some tips on how to go about extracting trees from their original source to add to a new composite? Im trying to make a painting at the moment and the trees are causing a bit of a headache I'm either left with a halo of colour around the edges, angular/pixely edges or a skinnier, unattractive version of the original.

Does anyone have any good methods for doing this aside from painstakingly going round each individual leaf? Particularly when the background isnt a flat colour either and has clouds, varying tones in it etc

Cheers

[rrische]

What software are you working in?

[cameo]

Photoshop Rick.

Im not especially savvy with channels but I guess they could be useful for something like this?

[rrische]

Oh, I thought you were compositing footage.

With trees that are against anything but a bald sky, I just
paint a mask by hand. It's slow and tedious, but when you're done,
you'll have a perfectly extracted element.

[cameo]

Yea thats what I suspected, I guess it pays off in the end since you only have to do it the once. Was just hoping there might be some way to expediate the process!

[NickJushchyshyn]

Do you happen to have an example source image to share?

Here's a tutorial that uses the blue channel for a fairly clean sky.
It generally works for busier backgrounds too. The trick is really finding the channel (or combination of channels) that extracts the contrast between the leaves and background.

This is a 33Meg Quicktime video tutorial:
http://www.jushhome.com/nick/tutorial/m ... ut_v01.mov

If you post an example image, maybe a few people could comment with specific ideas for your particular challenge.

Hope this helps.
Have fun.

[cameo]

Thanks for the reply NickJushchyshyn. Downloading the file as we speak so I take a look at it. I'll try and find some free webspace I can use to post the picture of the tree as like you say, every case is different.

[homer]

Great Video,
Thanks for creating and posting it

[NickJushchyshyn]

Glad the video can be of some help.
How big is your image file?

I think this forum allows for you to make attachments as large as 2MB to your posts.

[cameo]

Here are the trees that I have been trying to isolate. There are pesky clouds etc so it was a little troublesome. Looking at it again I think RRische is right with this one, hand painting the mask is the best way. There just seems to be so many little fiddly bits that I dont think it would be possible to get a good automated result. Can probably use your method as a starting point Nick so should save some time. Here is the image anyway;

I also have to fix the colour issues on the trunks as well, I might just clone here because I didnt like the results I was getting with the CC tools.

Incidentally the area I'm trying to isolate are the near trees and rocks that they sit on, all the background to be ditched.

Any other thoughts having seen the image guys?