This tut is my own creation, any similarity to other tuts is unintentionally coincidental. I'm using PSP 9, I'm sure it can be done in other versions.
Add a new layer and drag this layer below/under the image (plane) layer. Flood fill this layer with a medium dark color that is NOT in your image....I usually use #2a4dcf, or a very similar color....it's dark enough to show jaggies but still easy on the eyes.
Click on your background eraser tool and use the following settings. (The tool option bar is in two parts)
Use the large size bkgr eraser tool to remove the background around your image. (You can also use the regular eraser brush for this or use the cut function to cut away the area you don't want.) Click on the COLOR you want to remove from your image and drag your bkgr eraser to remove that color. The drawback of dragging your bkgr eraser is that if you make a mistake and want to 'undo' that mistake, everything you have erased since you clicked will be 'undone'. As such if you choose to use the drag method, it is wise to click often to reset the eraser as you drag.
Dragging your bkgr eraser works well for places like the large white background around this plane.
Click on the very top of your image and with the wheel on your mouse, increase the image magnification by pushing the wheel forward. Increase magnification to approximately 250%. This is a personal choice, if you need less or more magnification go for it!
If you do not have the function on your mouse, Go to View, Zoom, IN to 250%
My bkgr eraser is overlapping the plane just a bit
If you make a mistake and move your bkgr eraser over too much of the image, you will erase some of the pigment depth from the image, you can even erase the image!
Pay close attention to the beige area in this particular image. See how the beige color next to the blue background is now bluish? I moved the bkgr eraser too far onto the image thus reducing the original pigment.
You can easily fix this by going to your history palette and X'ing out the steps that need repairing. I highly recommend you X out one step at a time....
To get closer to the image set your background eraser to small (I used 13) and erase the undesired background, changing to a larger size as you move to onto larger areas to be removed.
Continue to erase all of the background, changing your tool size to get into small spaces and increasing your tool size for larger areas to be erased.
When you have erased all of the background, ZOOM OUT (restore your image to it's normal size) examine your image for mistakes.
Yikes! I discovered a mistake on the wing of my plane!
Don't panic!
Zoom IN on your mistake, get as close as possible. Click on your bkgr eraser tool (use a small size. Make sure you are on your image layer (plane) on your layer palette.
RIGHT click on your mouse, click on the image - directly over the mistake and click. The bkgr eraser tool will "undo" the erased area. MAKE SURE YOU ARE USING THE "RIGHT" MOUSE BUTTON. This can take a very long time if your mistake is large. I recommend this technique for smaller areas.
Okay! You have erased the background from your image but some of the edges look pretty jagged.
Select your soften brush, use these settings.
I use a fairly large brush setting because it's easier for me to control. You can do what is best for you.
Move your soften brush just to the edge of the image, this will smooth out the jaggies!
Don't over do with the soften brush - you will blur your image.
Before (jaggy edges)
After the soften
brush
You can now save this as a .psp or .pspimage or add a background and create a new graphic.
I hope this provided you with a few hints on how to use the background eraser tool.
The background eraser (bkgr eraser) works best on an image with a solid background and/or the image contains none of the background color. My airplane had a white background as you can see.
Promote your background to raster layer, rename to suit your image. I'm calling my layer plane.
Here's another example. I want to remove the blurred background. The more complicated the graphic and the more similar colors the background and the image share the more difficult I find the background to remove!
Using a larger bkgr eraser tool setting, I remove as much of the background as I can....
I decrease the bkgr eraser size and continue to remove the background as I did with the plane.
This whole process can be extremely time consuming. For example....animals with fur, like cats and dogs....the fine hairs are nearly impossible to remove the background with this method....I leave that up to the tubers (which by the way, have my total admiration and gratitude)!
If you have any questions....
One Method on How to Use the Background Eraser Tool
I'd like to thank Frankie for her inspiration and help with this tut!
Here are some of her results...
Be sure you are on the image layer (plane) when you start to erase.
*Tip* Change your background layer color to CONTRAST with your graphic.
You can use two different color layers to see more spots to erase. Just add another raster layer, drag under your image layer and flood fill with color.
You can set your STEP from 1-25, test your results.
See the difference in beige area (above) and in this one.
