Len Hewitt, I need your help!

[Lisa Sexton]

Hi Len,

Since you were usually the only one that could help me with my Photo Shop 4.0 LE I thought I'd ask you. If anyone else has the answer, feel free to give suggestions.

I have a photo that I have saved as a jpg. I want to remove the background in the photo and replace it with a solid color. The photo is of a gingerbread guy and the background is striped wallpaper! Is there anyway to remove the entire background without messing up the gingerbread guy and replace the background with a solid color?

You may not remember, but I usually post as "dumb blond" LOL, so please walk me through it with explicit directions. Remember, I'm using 4.0 LE. Thanks so much.

Lisa

[Colin Walls]

Not sure whether Len is my fellow coutryman or not, but I'll step in anyway.

First off, if you've got a JPEG, load it into PS and immediately save as a PSD. Only do a Save As to a JPEG when you're actually finished.

Taking out the stripes sounds like a magic wand job to me. Click on one of the stripes. Either uncheck the "contiguous" option first or use Select/Similar afterwards. You may need to fiddle with the tolerance to get it right. Then simply delete this stripe. Repeat for the other stripe.

Does that do it for you?

Not being an archaeologist, I don't have V4 to try this on, but it should have much the same facilities as V7 in this area. :-))

[Lisa Sexton]

Thanks everyone. Right now the only thing that seems to be working is using the eraser. It's very tedious, but it is working. Thanks for the suggestions! I'll be checking back to see if anyone else answers. Thanks again!

Lisa

[Margaret McDowell]

What about the magic eraser?

[Phosphor]

"What about the magic eraser?"




Almost positive no such tool exists in Photoshop 4 LE.

[deaton]

PS 4LE --Far too old for me to remember, but I seem to remember quick mask even back that far. In fact I still prefer quick mask mode for dropping out background.

[LenHewitt]

Lisa,

The easies way might well be to select the gingerbread man using the magic
wand (if small areas remain unselected, you can add to the selection using
the Shift button with any other selection tool such as lasso). Then you can
invert the selection, set your b/g colour to your desired colour and press
delete.