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Extract tool is bad ?


well but this never worked for me :D because when it says click channel options and select "Selected Areas" and hit ok this will invert the picture. But it doesn't invert anything. But when I try Masked areas it does. Does this work for you Welles ?
 
Evil Nemesis said:
Hi just tried pen tool for cutting out , its bit slow but better than the extract tool , extract tool always eats the picture from inside wheater smoot option set to 0 or 100 + history brush isn't easy to do on that hollow picture. what u say ? adobe has to make it better in future or totally remove the extract tool.
Click to expand...

What you want to use is alpha channels and the dodge and burn tools .. i know it sounds kind of crazy, but they used this method in a little known flim called "Star Wars episiode 1" There is a link i have provided below that gives you a quicktime movie that shows you what you need to do and how to do it step by step. You have to register with pixelcorps before you can see the movie, but it is a free registeration and pixelcorps hardly sends you any flyers (mail) after.

http://www.pixelcorps.com/techtv/
 
extract tool works ok but you need to play with it..

See the attached example... the way to have it work is to highlight the whole flower (inside and edge, not background) with the first tool but leaving a little space somewhere for the fill ( extract requires that you highlight and fill)...(I left a little area that was all most solid white middle left for the fill. what ever is "filled" doesn't get worked)

Remeber extract does its work in the highlight area not the fill. so if you go around the flowers edge and then fill the rest the only area being worked is the edge. Highlight the whole thing and it all gets worked.

Hope this helps,

Lasa
 
Thanks for the example, Lasa. Only problem is that look at how the Extract Tool left the image vs. the origianl. A lot of detail was lost.
 
Yeah, first rule which I did not do...

was to duplicate the layer 3-5 time then merge visible layers..rule one,... then you history brush any detail needed but lost. pick history brush and a black brush... I didn't do it to show the straight un-worked power of the extract tool. It could look loads better working it.

Lasa
 
OK , It's my really first try on knockout even I don't know to use it better now. This is the original image and Extracted with Photoshop cs 2 Extract tool within 2 minutes, No healing / cloning or history brush used.
 
And this is knock out extracted picture in 1 minute ! No healing

I found knockout the great tool for extraction ever, Thanx Lee 8)) But plz tell me how to extract that thing posted by lasa in last pic using knockout ?
 
Using Extract...smart highlights.

I sound like the poster-boy for "extract"! The truth being I've used extract more time in the last two days then I've used it in all my time using PS, rarely have flyaway hair etc.. I extracted the attached picture using "smart highlight" around the left side of the head, going out on the strands and extraction smooth to 34. I think it works pretty good...cheap considering it comes with PS.

The more I use this thing the more I like it.
Lasa
 
Evil,
Knockout has two sets of selection tools. One for the main part of the image you want to knock out and the second for interior parts of the object that may need to be selected (like the windows in the Greek ruin example in the manual). It takes a little practice. Sometimes you have to "clean up" a little but you'll have that with any extract tool. no matter how good it is. You'll get it. :righton:
 
Using EXTRACT

I like this extract more each time I use it.
Used a small "smart highlight" brush on the left side and hair and a really small regualr brush on the back of the arm...between the white highlight and the sky..
I like the way it looks. but then again I've been know to not be to picky.
Lasa
 
OK Lasa the extract tool wins ;) OK Lee ? hehehe :D

And I know how to extract basic pictures using knockout , but I was asking about extracting very thin objects like hairs , grass or water drops, how to extract (select) them + if a thing has many holes in it like the pic posted on page 2 , then how to select it for extraction ? Thanx
 
I fully agree what some people have said; Photoshop itself does a much faster and precise extraction job. I have Knockout 2, I'm pretty good with it, but over time I've experimented a lot with Photoshop and read a few books and browsed some forums and now I seldom use it anymore and mind you, it happens quite often that I have to remove backgrounds.
I can honestly say that Photoshop has saved me more time lately than Knockout. It's all a matter of taking the time to learn Photoshop and some people never take that time.

If anyone is still interested in Knockout, I'm offering it for a reasonable price, page me if you're interested, before I sell it on Ebay.
 
Interesting thread.

We've been trialling a plugin at work called Fluid Mask from Vertustech (free demo available) to see if it is something we might use.

I know many people - including us - are sceptical of plugins when the extract tool and pen tool/quick mask combo can easily be used to achieve excellent results, but from our work on a variety of test images the results were certainly impressive.

The new 'Image Information Layer' does a excellent job of working out an images HSL and can automatically find boundaries from which you can apply and adjust different masks using Brush, Pencil and Pen tools to create Delete, Keep or Complex Area masks according to taste. The Delete Mask Auto Flood tool is especially useful for removing large areas in a few clicks without the need to create complex paths and multiple selections.

From a professional perspective it looks the perfect tool for taking cutout workflow to the next level. It may be something worth considering for others in the same position.

AaronS.
 
?399 [saywhat] anyway thanx for sharing , it looks cool and better than knockout though, but I'm unable to find the trial for windows ?
 
Yeah the price is a little jaw-dropping, but easily offset in a busy studio.

There's no sign of a Windows version yet. The latest we heard was end of August possibly.

AaronS.
 
Aaron Sorkin said:
Yeah the price is a little jaw-dropping, but easily offset in a busy studio.
AaronS.
Click to expand...

I took a close look at Fluid Mask about a month ago and while the software worked very well, the price wasn't just jaw-dropping, it was patently absurd. I've never seen a plugin which the developers considered to be worth the cost of the parent program.

At $600 a pop, they might sell a couple of thousand licenses world wide. At $100 a pop, they might sell 30,000. I suspect this is a product priced to fail. Remember Live Picture?
 
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