Why such poor results with Background Erase?

[jaydear]

That's absolutely marvelous, and actually fun angelize! Thanks for that tutorial video. I accidentally found a quick way to trim bits of unintentional eraser and mask painter is to hold down the shift key - the brush gets a minus sign in it and it becomes a deleter.

[Contours]

hold down the shift key - the brush gets a minus sign in it and it becomes a deleter.

That's an excellent tip. It makes it much easier to try a "broadbrush draft" of the process ... then Undo and tune as needed.

Thank you.

[xtom]

Trying to remove grey background from a grey/desaturated image is trickier. I find the more contrast in colour the easier it is and less you have to do. For tricky ones I normally run along as close to the edges as possible and then fill in the rest as much as possible, takes a little more time but still much quicker and handier than tracing all of the edge exactly and usually get very good results. Though that plane nose shape would be pretty quick to just do with the shape tool too.

[Egg Bramhill]

My preferred method is to trace around the shape with the shape tool but occasionally I use the mask/erase background option. On completion of the erase background image I "Create Bitmap Image" transparent png, place a high contrast rectangle below this and then use the eraser tool to further remove unwanted background artifacts.

[wizard509]

place a high contrast rectangle below this and then use the eraser tool to further remove unwanted background artifacts.

Not sure I follow Egg.

[Egg Bramhill]

Larry, I recently did a Drop Cap for Q that used an image of people lined up in a queue. Tracing with the Shape Editor tool, just to retain the people but not the background, wasn't going to be a viable option, so I used the Mask/Erase background method.

This worked fairly well but some of the background was still retained and required further cleaning. I could see some dirty remnants of the background but against a white backdrop they weren't clear, thus my comment:

place a high contrast rectangle below this and then use the eraser tool to further remove unwanted background artifacts

In other words, it's not just a one step process if there's a lack of original contrast between foreground and backdrop. It may need two or three clean ups.

[richinri]

I have to say I find the background removal tool too time consuming. For years I used magic wands in Paintshop Pro where you do 1 or 2 pixel reductions of the mask with one click to remove fringe. I like playing with the Xara tool and sometimes have received good results but don't find it as useful as I had hoped. That is why Xara allows you to add your own raster program which I have done.

[stygg2003]

I use both methods, erase background and also shape tool > slice image, feather a little. Both methods need a little patience

Stygg

[Sadler]

I recently discovered that paint.net has an excellent magic wand tool that is good for removing backgrounds from bitmaps. You can interactively adjust the tolerance and the source colour for the best selection then hit delete. It is also quick and easy to do a number of selections for more complicated backgrounds.

Just another option, albeit outside of Xara.

[Gamerprinter]

I recently discovered that paint.net has an excellent magic wand tool that is good for removing backgrounds from bitmaps. You can interactively adjust the tolerance and the source colour for the best selection then hit delete. It is also quick and easy to do a number of selections for more complicated backgrounds.

Just another option, albeit outside of Xara.

Most image editors: Photoshop, GIMP, Paint.net, etc. can do exactly that.