Product Photo Help needed Please!

[Michi]

ARGH, I'm soooo ready to scream!!

I want to remove the background from my pic. I see finished pics. like this ALL of the time-how the heck do you do it???

I have paint shop pro 9, but it's like reading a foreign language, can't figure out what to do there, and not sure if any of my photo editing softwares would do this, or if MS publisher does, or what??

I've spent the last 3 hours trying to figure it out. What a waste of time, sometimes I just feel really dumb.

Anyone, can you please guide me in the right direction before I'm completely bald???

TIA!!

[marika]

Michi

If it's just one photo, I can do it for you

Mari

[NattyCat]

There's no easy way to do it. You need a steady hand and a good software programme. I currently use Corel Paint Shop Pro X and it can take me several attempts to get it right - it takes time and patience really. I'm getting quite a dab hand at it now, but you have to have a good quality photo to start off with. I use professional lighting, a lightbox, ultra white card and shine deflectors just to get a photo with a relatively white background but it still comes out grey - and then I remove it to make it pure white. It can be much much harder to remove full or busy backgrounds so I don't attempt it too often.You can pay a company to do it for you, but it's quite expensive. Once of the web designers or graphics people on here may be able to help you out free of charge or for a fee smaller than those charged by commercial graphic artists.Nat

[marika]

I forgot to say NO charge. Just email me the pic as high a resolution as it was taken.

Mari

[Candle Man]

There's no easy way to do it. You need a steady hand and a good software programme. I currently use Corel Paint Shop Pro X and it can take me several attempts to get it right - it takes time and patience really. I'm getting quite a dab hand at it now, but you have to have a good quality photo to start off with. I use professional lighting, a lightbox, ultra white card and shine deflectors just to get a photo with a relatively white background but it still comes out grey - and then I remove it to make it pure white. It can be much much harder to remove full or busy backgrounds so I don't attempt it too often.You can pay a company to do it for you, but it's quite expensive. Once of the web designers or graphics people on here may be able to help you out free of charge or for a fee smaller than those charged by commercial graphic artists.Nat

Have you tried the white light balance in your camera? If you adjust that it will make your background pure white. Check out that feature on your camera.

[NattyCat]

Have you tried the white light balance in your camera? If you adjust that it will make your background pure white. Check out that feature on your camera.

yeah, I did this - I went through every single setting there is and eventually the best and whitest result came from the setting being on "fluorescent lighting". I've fiddled and fiddled with the settings til I'm blue in the face, but despite have a $1000 camera, I just can't get it to take a perfectly white background pic - I always need to work on it in Corel to get it REALLY white - and this is when I use two massive professional camera lights, a white tent with the camera poking through to door hole, white card inside the tent to prevent glare AND the white balance set up as best I can.In fact, I got so frustrated with it all, I got a professional photographer to take my stuff to his studio to photo - and when I got the pics back, despite asking for a pure white background, it was grey. He said "it's ok, we can sort that out" and I thought "well hell, if he's just gonna use software, then I'll stick to doing it myself"!!Nat

[Candle Man]

yeah, I did this - I went through every single setting there is and eventually the best and whitest result came from the setting being on "fluorescent lighting". I've fiddled and fiddled with the settings til I'm blue in the face, but despite have a $1000 camera, I just can't get it to take a perfectly white background pic - I always need to work on it in Corel to get it REALLY white - and this is when I use two massive professional camera lights, a white tent with the camera poking through to door hole, white card inside the tent to prevent glare AND the white balance set up as best I can.In fact, I got so frustrated with it all, I got a professional photographer to take my stuff to his studio to photo - and when I got the pics back, despite asking for a pure white background, it was grey. He said "it's ok, we can sort that out" and I thought "well hell, if he's just gonna use software, then I'll stick to doing it myself"!!Nat

Have you tried daylight floressent bulbs in reflectors? http://store.tabletopstudio-store.com/lightbulbs.html They work great for me and cost much less than professional lighting.

Here let me give you some links that may help you.

http://www.obuynow.com/

http://www.creativepro.com/story/feature/19002.html

http://www.graphic-design.com/photographic/curtin/background_lights.html

http://www.dennisonbertram.com/hackmaster/2005/02/macro-light-box.htm

http://www.shortcourses.com/studio/tabletop/studio.htm

http://www.rhapsodydolls.com/doll_photography.htm

http://www.photokaboom.com/photography/learn/tips/020_light_tents.htm

http://www.pbase.com/wlhuber/light_box_light_tent

http://www.makezine.com/blog/archive/2006/03/how_to_make_a_super_simple_lig.html

http://nslog.com/archives/2005/04/05/soft_box_for_photography.php

http://shutterbug.com/features/0606studiolight/

http://www.shutterbug.net/techniques/lighting/1003sb_tabletop/

http://www.silversmithing.com/1photo.htm

http://www.tabletopstudio.com/

http://www.theswitchboards.com/articles_professionalphotos.html

HTH

[Sweet68cam]

Hey there, here is a great tut. for PSP its for 7 but should work pretty much the same for yours.

http://www.bingoware.com/pages/cutouts.html

[ignitethesenses]

This is easy peasy in Adobe Photoshop with the extract filter. I'm not sure if its in Photoshop Elements (or whatever the "light" version is)....but I think you can download trial versions of adobe products on their webiste...

[lbtddr]

it may not be the best way but you can do a free hand cut and cut out the part of the pitcher u wont to keep.it will be on a white back ground this way. Adobe Photo shop i can not help you with. but surly it has a freehand cut on it.