Nick Wilson wrote:

Hi everyone,

Im selecting a subject (my sister) from her background, for use as a transparent jpg on a webpage. Here is the pic so far: http://www.stylesheet.org/2.jpg

I know i need to replace quite a few pixels that got inadvertently transparentized (?) but my question is this: I have roughly used the eraser to get as near to the body as possible. Is there a tool that will help me get closer?

Ideally, i'd like to have the edges soft, but im a total novice at graphic design (cant u tell? ;-) and could really use a little push in the right direction.

btw, hard edges are fine if they will look good, the only thing that really matters is that it looks great on a webpage. My thanks....

Hi Nick,

I think the following tutorial corresponds more or less to what you want to achieve.
http://www.gimpguru.org/Tutorials/ReplaceForeground/

The problem of loosing pixels you had with you dog and with your sister would be easily avoided if:

1- You always work on a copy (thus you can get the lost data back).

2- You use either the layer mask or the quickmask, as I explained yesterday. The eraser is definitely not the good tool for what you want.

Best regards,

Olivier.

PS: Your sister looks great! (forgive me, I am French ;) )

Nick Wilson wrote:

* and then olivier ripoll declared....

I think the following tutorial corresponds more or less to what you want to achieve.
http://www.gimpguru.org/Tutorials/ReplaceForeground/

The problem of loosing pixels you had with you dog and with your sister would be easily avoided if:

1- You always work on a copy (thus you can get the lost data back).

Ahhhh... ok!

A way can be to duplicate the original layer and to work on the copied layer. Thus, by playing with the layer visibility, you can compare the original and the result... and copy back deleted pixels.

2- You use either the layer mask or the quickmask, as I explained yesterday. The eraser is definitely not the good tool for what you want.

Right, do you think that photo is now rubbish? do i need to start over from the beggining?

No, but you will not obtain a final good result with only the eraser or the magic wand selection tool. At some point you need a tool where you can select and deselect easily, on a pixel-per-pixel level, and with a border that will be "feathered" (smooth). The quickmask, with the paint brush tool and a smooth small round brush (1, 3 or 5 pixels diameter) is the perfect tool.
Another tutorial of quickmask can be found here: http://www.cubicdesign.com/gimp/1_6/

I do not know if you plan to add a background behind you dog and sister in the image file, or if you want to use the background of your website, but in the second case, you will have to use RGB PNG and the trick given here:
http://www.alistapart.com/articles/pngopacity/ http://dean.edwards.name/IE7/
to have it displayed correctly in IE Win32.

Sincerely,

Olivier.

> >>PS: Your sister looks great! (forgive me, I am French ;) ) > hehe, that's why she's the model, i want this site to make $$$s.... hehe > ;-)
My credit card number is 1234 5678 9012 3456 ;) You can even improve the photo with this trick: http://www.cubicdesign.com/gimp/2_5/

Nick Wilson wrote:

* and then olivier ripoll declared....

Right, do you think that photo is now rubbish? do i need to start over

from the beggining?

No, but you will not obtain a final good result with only the eraser or the magic wand selection tool. At some point you need a tool where you can select and deselect easily, on a pixel-per-pixel level, and with a border that will be "feathered" (smooth). The quickmask, with the paint brush tool and a smooth small round brush (1, 3 or 5 pixels diameter) is the perfect tool.

Right, I actually got on really well with using a layer mask! - However, now i am down to the very fine details im not sure i have the right brush. You mentioned 'feathered' but i dont see that in the tool options? Im using a 3px fuzzy circle, is that the same thing? my lines are a little jagged ;(

The fuzzy circle is fine, it is what I meant by 'feather'. With it, your image should not look jagged then. I managed to get good results with the circle fuzzy 7 and 9. 3 might be too small indeed. You must paint in black in the mask not only what you want to delete, but also the pixels at the border of what you want to keep.

Also, you'd better use a zoom level of at least 2 to do this with more control.

Regards,

Olivier.

Nick Wilson wrote:

* and then olivier ripoll declared....

Right, I actually got on really well with using a layer mask! - However, now i am down to the very fine details im not sure i have the right brush. You mentioned 'feathered' but i dont see that in the tool options? Im using a 3px fuzzy circle, is that the same thing? my lines are a little jagged ;(

The fuzzy circle is fine, it is what I meant by 'feather'. With it, your image should not look jagged then. I managed to get good results with the circle fuzzy 7 and 9. 3 might be too small indeed. You must paint in black in the mask not only what you want to delete, but also the pixels at the border of what you want to keep.

Hooray! This is a much better effort I think ;-) http://www.stylesheet.org/3.jpg

Great work. No jagged pixels at all.

You think that's okay Oliver or does it need some work? I think it looks great but like i said, im no graphic artist....

Thanks ever so much for all the help, very kind of you to take the time dude..

I am no artist either, but you can still try to see what would happen to the colours/contrast if you play with the levels tool (Layer->Colors->Levels). There are other filters there that you might try just to see if you can improve the image colours: try every one of the Layer->Colors->Auto menu and see if one can give a good result. Nothing guaranteed ;)

Best regards,

Olivier.