select a jewellery piece from a shaded bg

[shweta.samat]

HI,

I am currntly working on a jewelry print brochure. I have lots of jewelry pieces to clean i.e to select them from their existing background(bg) and place it against another. Since it is for print it has to be accurate. I have tried using the lasso tool but it's too time consuming and the results aren't perfect. The edges are still too sharp. I am attaching an image, please help me out guys!!!!! Plz!!!!!!!!!!

Thanks a Ton!

[Albacore]

The way I do it is to use channels as a mask. Have a look at this tutorial ; http://graphicssoft.about.com/od/pho...rbps_2fwks.htm

There is a great vid tutorial, by Deke McMillan I think his name was, where he showed this method but this time it was even harder, he use a glass of water with the water being splashed around. Well worth a search for it.

[Albacore]

Found the video for you, have at look at this page: http://movielibrary.lynda.com/html/modPage.asp?ID=416
Then click on "Selecting a Glass and Water"

[Mchilly]

Alpha channeling is the best way to do that, I worked a lot of times with jewelries and more!

[Sark]

If you have a lot of this kind of work to do in the future, Knockout 2 would be worthy consideration.

Sark

[Sark]

Actually, I gave your image a go in Knockout and it was not too successful due to the lack of edge definition. I then gave the Edge eraser a go and found I could get quite good results quite quickly. The image below took about 5, or 6 minutes.

Sark

[Blue_begemoth]

I'd use Mask Pro here. It has tools for different kinds of edges. It'll definitely be quicker than lasso or, even KnockOut.
Here's a review with examples and a tutorial on cutting out with transparencies:
Selecting images with MaskPro
How to make a MaskPro cutout
And they have video tutorials on their site, too.