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What's the best way to handle this photo. I tried using the magnastic lasso tool to move her onto a new white canvas but I can tell around the edges. Then I tried using the clone tool to add white at the top bit it's very difficult around her fingers. Can it be done....if so what's the best technique. The good news is I didn't promise them this photo will work.

Any help on this would be appreciated.

Thanks so much,
Bridget

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Hi Bridget,

Nice shot. What you want should not be difficult at all. I would rather see a high resolution image to be sure, but I think the magic wand is probably your best bet. I would aim to select and delete the background rather than selecting the person.

The only tricky part may be around the fingers but, as I say, looking at your original high resolution at 100% may show it to not be that difficult.

Rusty
There is a very fine line between "hobby" and "mental illness" - Dave Barry

If your pictures aren't good enough, you're not close enough. - Robert Capa

www.prestophoto.com/photos/gallery/19932
Hi Rusty.....I'm not sure how to do that. I've used the magic wand but not for what you are talking about. Can I email you the full rez. file?

Thanks so much for your help. I really do appreciate it.

Bridget
sent you a PM

Rusty
There is a very fine line between "hobby" and "mental illness" - Dave Barry

If your pictures aren't good enough, you're not close enough. - Robert Capa

www.prestophoto.com/photos/gallery/19932
Bridget, you have a nice, sharp image and, as I suspected, the Magic Wand did a good job selecting the unwanted background. Start off by duplicating your BG layer and turn the eyeball off on the BG. Zoom in to 100% and use your magic wand to click in the gray area around the hands. Pay attention to the marching ants to see what is being selected. If it starts slopping over into the figure, reduce the sensitivity of the wand. The default is "32" and you may be able to see here that I reduced it down to "13".
Select-1.jpg
Select-1.jpg (132.51 KiB) Viewed 1619 times


You don't have to do it all at once. Get a bit selected and then hit the delete key. Because you have turned off the eyeball of your BG layer, you can see exactly what progress you are making.
Select-2.jpg
Select-2.jpg (143.4 KiB) Viewed 1619 times


Move over to another part of the image and, with the magic wand, click some more just outside the edges of the person.
Select-3.jpg
Select-3.jpg (146.4 KiB) Viewed 1619 times


I would ignore everything except just the parts touching the figure. When you are all finished, just use the eraser tool to wipe off those parts.
Select-4.jpg
Select-4.jpg (117.09 KiB) Viewed 1618 times


You can see that I still have some gray touching the hand on the left side. You could use the magic wand or, probably easier, just select with the polygon lasso tool to delete. The magic wand does most of the heavy lifting. There is some white still around the hair but as you say a white canvas is your aim, that is not going to matter.

You might even want to run thru this twice. I would do it once with no feathering to the selection. Then, on another copy of the file, do it again with the selection feathered 1-or-2-or-3 pixels right before hitting the delete key. Experiment and see what looks best to you.

Rusty
There is a very fine line between "hobby" and "mental illness" - Dave Barry

If your pictures aren't good enough, you're not close enough. - Robert Capa

www.prestophoto.com/photos/gallery/19932
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