How to separate text from the background

[John Smith]

Hello everybody,

I am new here and I am writing you this message to ask you for help with my problem. I have made a digital picture of a book page with my digital camera. My camera is a 12 mpix digital camera and it should make good digital pictures, at least in theory. The original picture made by the camera was 4000 × 3000 pixels big and I made a small chunk out of it which you can find in the attachment.

My problem is how to isolate text from the background to make almost perfect text selection. I need text for the OCR procedure so the text selection needs to be appropriate.

I have already tried some simple methods like magic wand, contrasts, brightness etc but this things look like a game to me. I would like to know if there is a systematic approach (channels, masks) to perfectly isolate black color from the rest of the picture and how to apply it. Please, help me.

Thank you very much in advance,
John Smith

 

[$1r_M4x1mu$]

Hi John Smith

Welcome, i'll suggest working whit one of the techniques used here:
6 techniques to extract anything from its background

You may find this helpful.

* try specially the channels extraction technique, is a very powerful technique.

 

[Hoogle]

View attachment 4913

Something like that

 

[Hoogle]

re last post that took less than 2 mins using magic eraser tolerance set to 30 then lowered down to 15 for holes in letters as you can see did not do it all then save image as a png if you want a tranbsparant background

 

[John Smith]

Thank you very much for your answers. Maybe someone can try extracting text for me so I can see how good is the result.

Thanks,
John Smith

 

[Hoogle]

what exactly do you want a psd file with just the text selected

 

[Hoogle]

View attachment 4915

now just goto select colour range click your mouse on part of the letter an move the fuzziness bar up you should get a black background and white text in the preview window once you are happy click ok then text is set as a selection then

 

[John Smith]

re last post that took less than 2 mins using magic eraser tolerance set to 30 then lowered down to 15 for holes in letters as you can see did not do it all then save image as a png if you want a tranbsparant background

The problem is, so to say, there are too many holes in the letters.

I have no experience working with png files. What are they good for?

Thanks,
JS

 

[Hoogle]

the psd I just uploaded has the holes removed for you the png files lets you save the image without the background so you can just import it into other images and have a text overlay for example

 

[Hoogle]

would you like me to make a quick video for you showing you how to select just the text only

 

[John Smith]

You are very kind for offering me to make a video. But I do not want to bother you with the video before we clarify what I am trying to achieve.

I would like to make selection of the text by using channels and calculation method.

Thanks in advance,
JS

 

[Hoogle]

video tutorial using your image

 

[allenrm]

2 questions.
1. If you know what method you want used, why not just find a tutorial on it and do it.
2. What OCR software are you using. I used Textbridge I think it was called and it would have read that and converted it without issue.
Sorry if I sound rude that is not my intention, just trying to get a handle on this. Hoogleman had gone to incredible lengths and your software still won't do the job for you?

 

[John Smith]

video tutorial using your image

WOw, it is really a great video. Thank you very much for making it for me.

Thanks once again,
JS

 

[John Smith]

2 questions.
1. If you know what method you want used, why not just find a tutorial on it and do it.
2. What OCR software are you using. I used Textbridge I think it was called and it would have read that and converted it without issue.
Sorry if I sound rude that is not my intention, just trying to get a handle on this. Hoogleman had gone to incredible lengths and your software still won't do the job for you?

Well, you are right about Hoogleman. He has done a great job with his video and I wish to thank him for that once again. Furthermore, I would like to try Textbridge out.

Maybe you can help me with channels and calculation?

 

[Hoogle]

I am sorry but that is not an area I work in I have never had anything to use channel selection on etc so not an expert in it (nor am i an expert in anything with photoshop I am still considered a noob myself) but maybe this will help you out some more

 

[John Smith]

Great tutorial about the channels. In order to follow the instructions from the video I have separated three different channels as three different images. The red channel, green and the blue one.

As far as I understood the video I should work on the red channel because with the the red channel I can get the biggest contrast between the letters and the background. Am I right? Please, comment on that.

Sincerely yours,
John Smith

 

[Burned Ice]

i seperated my homefront-guy (see my avatar) from it's background by using the freeform pen tool, make a line around him and then with add anchor point tool making it go just around the line of the guy-background and adjusting it by adding anchorpoints (just click on the line) moving them to the line (ctrl+click on anchor point and move it) and adjusting curves (ctrl+click on line and move it) after that right click on line and 'make selection' and then copy it into a new layer, (the original homefront guy was much more grey-like, i added a few effects so it would be more explosion-near like. and added a new background, made a couple of effects, added a new layer between guy and background with brown collour, added noise and motion blur and set it to 'soft light' and i had it (with a hair brush tool i made those fancy lines on the buildings, also soft light)

 

[John Smith]

Thank you for sharing your experience how to separate a person (home guy) from the background. The method you used is not appropriate for my case because your icon (the guy) is relatively big in comparison to the rest of the picture. In my case I have a lot of small letters which I cannot separate using your method.

I am looking for someone who knows how to work with channels. Channel experts, please help.

Sincerely yours,
John Smith

 

[Hoogle]

as to what channely you should be using all depends on the colours your working with you will find each channel will bring out certain colours better all though I have always found red to always work for me lol but I do not use channel selection very often I think it is a longer way for what you are trying to achieve but then it is also a good way to learn it on something as delicate as that