When I Erase Background for a bitmap and export to PDF, the outline looks terrible.

[gwpriester]

Yeah, I read that Pete. But we have moved along basically to effective background erasure, and my point was and is, the the Color Select/Erase does not do a good job. Period.

But that the combination of Mask Painter (to sample the colors to be erased) and the Erase Tool (to sample the color or colors to be erased), does a very excellent job.

I am not sure if everybody understands the distinction I am making here. Color Select/Erase leaves a visible fringe and is damn near impossible to get rid of which is especially visible at high levels of zoom. The Mask Painter + Erase Tool > Erase Background feature is only available in Designer Pro X9 and Photo & Graphic Designer 9. It is not even close to being the same as Color Select/Erase.

[PeteS]

Yes and I agree there is a difference, but that wasn't the problem for the OP. I think we've beaten this to death now...

[angelize]

For what it's worth I'm sure my time estimate was way off I tried it again and this time it took 3 mins. I'm now scratching my own head as to how I got such a good result so fast yesterday. Step by step my method with the rat. I'm not counting what I call prep time, nor any tidy up time.

Prep time: I give the image a quick look over looking for areas in the photo that have the same or very same colouring as the background as those areas need to be completely covered with the masking. For the rat this meant the eyes and the toenails in particular, and his teeth as well.

And I looked for areas where the edges of the item have similar colours to the background, these areas need to be done more concisely. For the rat this was his toenails.

the final thing I looked for was areas where the background was either surrounded or nearly surounded by the image. Mr rat has a few, a couple around his tail, one near that right toe and one up near that tooth that sticks out. Now I know what areas I can just scribble through and what areas to spend a bit more time on.

I cropped the image as close to the rat as possible and adjusted brightness and contrast to give the best contrast possible between the rat and the background.

Also I use a graphics tablet and make sure the eraser tool and the shapebuilder tool (the mask painter is based on the shapebuilder) have pressure recording enabled. This saves a lot of time in not needing to adjust the zoom level as often.
timing begins
Masking:
With the mask painter set at a medium size I quickly scribble over the main part of the rat, making sure his eyes and teeth are completely covered. Zoom in to his nose and that tooth that sticks out and quickly paint over the highlight on his nose and precisely mask that tooth then I move down and zoom in and lightly draw some strokes over the tail his legs and feet. Zoom in some more use the spacebar to pan over to the left foot and quickly add a couple small stokes to the foot and paint his toenails. Pan to the right foot and do the same Now switch to the Eraser Tool

Eraser:
As I'm already zoomed in on the right foot this is where I start erasing small concise strokes around the toe that sticks up and around each toenail. zoom out just a bit and more quick scribbles around the foot. Pan to tail and a few quick stokes in each area of white there Zoom in and do a small light stroke between the heel of the right foot and the tail zoom out and quickly scribbile around the rest of the background taking care not to touch the rat. zoom in on the nose/tooth area and one or two light strokes around that tooth. hit erase background.
time Approx. 3mins

At this point I check the photo over and if needed I will go in with a soft eraser and tidy up a bit. I saw only one area with the rat where I might have gone in and tidied and that was around that danged tooth. A quick trip back to the photo tools and click the compare button resets the rat to his original brightness and contrast settings.

[Acorn]

Thanks angelize, you described the approach perfectly. I managed to get a near perfect result (including PDF). I chose a blue background to provide enough contrast to rework the very few missed white edges. It took around a minute.

Acorn

[Albacore]

That zoom bug in Acro Reader has been known for years and it is well documented in many Adobe forums. Even in TG this problem has been reported 2 twice and I have tried to find them but can't find them it was the same jaggies above 120% zoom.