Designing Scrollsaw Patterns
with Paint Shop ProX

Part 6


Background Removal
and
The Text Tool

Before beginning the conversion process on your photo, usually some or all of the background will need to be removed. Here we will discuss some procedures or methods for accomplishing this task.

First load the subject photo (bhp.jpg) in Paint Shop Pro and "Save As...". Give the file an unique name and choose to save as a pspimage file. By saving in this format, you can exit and save your work at any stage and retain all the existing attributes. Increase the color depth to 16bit or 16 million colors and click the "Duplicate Layer" icon on the PA Bar. Click "Save". We will not be concerned with resizing this picture as this will only be an exercise.

Comparing the original photo to the image at the right, you will see that if we decreased the color depth for our photo to two colors, not grayscale but black and white; we would see that the lighter shades of gray convert to white and the darker shades to black. This is much the same results that you would get if you used Threshold adjustment on the pattern. If we want a white background, we need only to change the darker area to white and this could be accomplished easily using only the paint brush with white paint. However; for the purpose of this tutorial we will erase or change the entire background.

First we will work with the obvious tool, the background eraser. This tool is especially useful when there is good contrast between the background and the subject.

You may want to go back and review the discussion and exercise concerning the "Background Eraser" in Part 2 before continuing.

On the "Tools" toolbar pickup the "Background Eraser" (PSP8/9 ) On the "Tool Options" Palette, set: Eraser shape to "Default", Sampling to "Continuous" and Limits to "Continuous". For some photos better results may be obtained by setting Limits to "Find Edges", but I find that the "Continuous" setting is usually satisfactory.

We will be erasing the background from the "Copy of Background" layer, so that layer will need to be selected and should have the blue highlight. We must also "hide" the "Background" layer by clicking on it's "Visibility Toggle" as indicated in the graphic to the right. Visibility Toggle location for PSP8/9

(After the background has been erased you can toggle the bottom layer "on" and you will see why it was necessary to turn that layer "off" before using the background eraser.)
The setup should look something like this:

To use the Background Eraser, left click anywhere in the area to be erased and slowly drag the eraser to the subject area then around the outline of the subject. It is a good idea to release the mouse button and re-click often. If an area erases to much then just hit the undo arrow, and this will undo the portion erased since the last click.

Here is an example of the picture with the background erased at the subject line. (You will probably be seeing a checkboard background on your screen rather than white as in this example.) Notice that with this photo that there is no definite dividing point in the black around the chin. This is area is left to your own interpretation of the picture. Also, be sure to leave a little of the black area around the face and shirt to seperate the subject from the new white background. The amount left is not important right now as this can be altered later.

On this photo it would be an easy task to go ahead and erase the rest of the background now. You can increase the size of the eraser to make the work faster. But for the sake of illustration, I am going to remove the rest of the background using the "Freehand Selection Tool" or "Lasso".
Now pickup the "Lasso", you will find it here:

To use the Lasso tool for removing the excess background we will first select the portion of the image that we want to retain. Position the lasso at a point inside the area that was erased when using the background eraser. (Red "X" for example) Now left click and hold, then drag the lasso around and as close as possible to the image, following the path made by the background eraser. Continue to drag the lasso until you come back to and cross the starting point before releasing the mouse button. If you should release the mouse before completing the enclosure you will need to "undo" and start over.

The example on the left shows the path that I followed with the lasso. It has been outlined in blue for clarity. Once the path is selected it actually appears as crawling dashes. (marching ants)

For simplicity we have selected the area that we want to save rather than the area that needs to be removed. So the next step is to convert this selection to that part of the image that is to be removed. This is easy. On the PA Bar click the "Invert Selection" icon. (Note: this icon is not active until after a selection is made.)

After clicking the icon you will notice that the ants are now marching in a different path, that is the path that encirles the portion to be removed.

Now go to Edit>Clear or hit your "Delete" key, then click "Select None" on the PA Bar to get rid of the ants. Your image will look like the graphic above right.

But we want a white background not a checkerboard, so there are still a couple more steps to perform.

Go to Layers>New Raster Layer. In the dialog box choose the Default setting and click "OK".

The "Layers" palette now shows to contain 3 layers. "Background" which is the original image, "Copy of Background", the layer from which we have just removed the background, and the layer just created "Raster 1" (To eliminate any confusion note that the "background" title for a layer has nothing to do with the background of the image that we are removing.)

We have previously hidden the "Background" layer, now hide the "Copy of Background" layer by clicking on it's "Visibility Toggle". This leaves the Raster 1 layer visible on your screen - the checkerboard image. Make sure that the Raster 1 layer is active, that is, it has the blue highlight. If not, click the layer's title on the "Layers" palette.

PSPX

PSP8/9

Now go to the "Tools" toolbar and pickup the "Flood Fill Tool"(the paint bucket).


Set the foreground color to white and left click on the checkerboard image. It will turn white. Of course, if we want a black background rather than white, we would set the foreground color to "Black".

Back on the Layers Palette, click the "Copy of Background" "Visibility Toggle" again. This turns the "Copy of Background" layer on again but the image does not show because it is behind the solid white Raster Layer.

This is the way we fix that:
Click on the Raster 1 layer (we are still working in the Layer Palette) and drag that layer down below the "Copy of Background" layer and release. Now you see it.

The graphic to the right shows the "Raster 1" layer under "Copy of Background". Notice that the graphic also shows that the "Visibility Toggle" is turned "on", on the top two layers but is still turned "off" on the bottom layer. This is important for the next step.

Go to Layers>Merge>Merge Visible.

As the command suggests, the top two layers have been merged into only one layer titled "Merged". Since we left the "Visibility Toggle" turned "off" on the "Background" layer it was not mergered with the other two layers. This allows us to have the original image intact in case we need to "bleed" it forward to pick up extra details after the conversion. (As we did when working with the Bull Terrier pattern.) The bottom layer may now be turned "on". This is what will be referred to in future tutorials as turning a layer "on" or "off".

With the "Merged" layer as the active layer, pick up your paint brush set to white and clean up any stray areas that were missed by the background eraser but leave some black around the shirt and face. The image is now ready for the conversion process.

In the above example we used three different tools for the background removal. The Background Eraser, the Lasso Tool and the Paint Brush.

Understand that this was an extreme example and you will normally use a simpler method of background removal but it may include different combinations of the steps mentioned above.

As all photos are different, the photo that you are working with will determine the best method and the best tools to use.

You may lasso near the subject then fill the selected area with your background color, then clean up with the paint brush. If you have a picture like the Buddy Holly photo, you may choose to outline the darker gray and black area with the paint brush set to white and then fill the outlined area with the Flood Fill Tool.

Some patterns may need an all black background as in this Rainbow Trout pattern:
Some patterns may look good with two different colors of background, that is part white and part black as in this pattern of the Bellamy Brothers:

And still other photos may not need any alteration at all to the background.

Let's turn our attention to the "Text" tool for a few moments.

This will only be an introductory discussion but it will allow the addition of your name to a pattern. We will do an entire tutorial about the fancy stuff you can do with Text at a later date.

Go to File>New and create a new Raster Background image, any size, 100 pixels per inch, RGB 16bit (16million color), color = White. Click "OK"

Notice you have a single layer showing on the "Layers" palette. This could as well be a pattern waiting for the addition of your name. The text (your name) will be on a vector layer and will be merged with the pattern when saved as a jpg or gif file. This vector layer will be created automatically when you execute the text tool command.

Pick up the "Text" tool from the "Tools" toolbar, that is the icon with the big "A". (PSP8/9 is similiar)

As you check out the "Tools Option" palette for the "Text" tool you will notice that this palette has 2 expansion arrows. There are a ton of available options.

The options on the left hand side of the palette are much like what you are all ready famaliar with from any word processor. i.e. Font, Size, Bold, Italic and Alignment. However, there are many more options that we will be using later on. For now I will just mention the settings for some of these other options. Don't forget, if you can't find an option that is mentioned here, click on the arrowheads to expand or collaspe a portion of the palette.

To begin, let's use the following settings:

On the "Materials" palette set the background and the foreground color to "Black".

After the above settings are made click anywhere on the new image and the text window will open and wait for your input. Type in your name then click "Apply". The text may be repositioned anywhere on the page by dragging with the mouse. Mouse over the center of the text until the crosshairs or four directional arrows appear then left click and drag to the desired position. Optionally, you may go to Objects>Align then choose to Horizontally Center, Vertically Center or Center in Canvas. Notice that when the text was created that a new vector layer was added to the Layers palette. That layer has a "+" mark beside of it indicating that it may be expanded.

To edit the text, select the "Text" tool and select the vector layer that contains the text that you want to edit. (In this case there is just one layer with text but in later exercises there may be several). Then mouse over the text until the "A" on the cursor changes to an A in brackets like this: [A]. When the brackets appear, left click and the text window will open again and it will including the text. If you click before the brackets appear a new text window would open.

After the window with the text that you want to edit is opened, then you may change about anything you want including the font, font size and color. After editing click "Apply" to return the text to the document.

So go ahead and edit your text, your name; choose a font style that you like, make it whatever color you want. If you have an original pattern and want to add the copyright symbol, hold down the "Alt" key while typing in 0169 then release and the © will appear. This doesn't work with all fonts but it will work with many of them.

After clicking "Apply" the text can be resized by clicking on the handles at the corners and dragging in or out to the desired size:

This doesn't scratch the surface as to what all can be done with the text options but as I said, we will do an indepth study on this topic later.

Practice Project: Download photos from the net and just practice removing the backgrounds using the various removal methods. Many times a good pattern depends on how well the background was treated, so this is not a topic to be taken lightly. It is important to the over all quality of the pattern. So once again, Practice - Practice - Practice.

Also let me remind you to go to: www.woodburner.com and download and convert as many of these pictures as you can using the tools and techniques that you have learned so far. These are some of the best practice pictures that I know of.

Pattern Academy©2007