Cutting my dog from a photo and putting on another background

[SamuelMSr]

Ok so I need some major help here.

I want to make a really awesome image to put on my debit card for my Zion's Bank account.

(If you do a Google search for myPHOTO for Zion's Bank you will see what I am talking about.)

I want to take this picture of my dog, Sadie:



And cut her out and then find a background (I havn't picked what I want to use or found one yet) and then put her name on it in some kind of text and all that cool stuff.

First off, I tried to use the background eraser and some other crap in Photoshop CS6 to just cut her out and it is not working. With all her fuzzy fur and "tail feathers" as I call the fur that sticks out from her tail and, well, all around her.

I also can not figure out how to fix her eyes, she has cataracts and no matter what I do they reflect sunlight and especially the flash.

So, can someone help me? If someone wants a project and wants to do it for me I would not be opposed to that (I dont want to make people mad at me, just tossing it out there).

Any thoughts, comments are welcome. If you need practice and want something to work on and want to play with it, go for it. If you want to flame me and call me names and stuff, I am ok with that too!

Thanks for your help!!!

Sam

 

[Tom Mann]

If it was really important (eg, the dog passed away and this was the only photo available), or this was a paying job, in principle, one of our Photoshop Gurus *could* work with the photo you posted. It would take considerable work and the results may not be to your satisfaction. In contrast, by far, the best way to get what you want would be to simply take another photo that is better suited for your purpose.

What makes the current photo difficult to work with is that in some areas, the dog's fur is darker than the background, while in others, it is lighter than the background, and, in yet other areas, it is exactly the same brightness as the background. This would drive even the most experienced PS Guru crazy. LOL. The post processing would be much easier and the end result would be vastly better if the background was very simple, say, a plain, uniformly illuminated white wall. No wood, no openings, no shadows, no half-wall-half-bedspread background. There are even better alternatives to a plain white background (eg, rim lighting to separate the dog from a dark background), but something like that requires serious lighting equipment (eg, a DSLR and a few off camera flash units), and someone used to working with such equipment. A plain white background should be do-able even with a little point and shoot camera.

A uniformly lit, but colored background would also be better than what you currently have, but, in this case, there will almost certainly be bleed-through of the background color around each hair, and that would have to be dealt with in Photoshop.

Next, I would strongly suggest that you take the new photo in a location and at a time where you don't have to use the built-in flash on your camera. This will have multiple benefits:

(a) it completely eliminates the reflection from the dog's eyes;

(b) it gets rid of the shadow on the wall and bedspread to our right of the dog; and,

(c) it eliminates the rapid fall off of the light with increasing distance, so the nearest areas of white (ie, the bedspread) will be similar in brightness to everything else that's white in the room including the more distant white walls.

Just a bit of thought and planning before one pushes the shutter button will save huge amounts of someone else's time attempting to salvage the image for you.

Just my $0.02,

Tom

 

[Tom Mann]

All of the above suggestions for improvement not withstanding, I have a soft spot for dogs, so I thought I'd at least demo what could quickly be done with the image you posted.

As I'm sure you will see, there are a huge number of things wrong with this little extraction and composite demo. They range from errors in the extraction process (mostly caused by the issues I raised earlier) to me not spending enough time getting his shadow and pupils correct, as well as other problems, but at least it will give you an idea. Give us a better image to work from, and we'll be happy to have a serious go at it.

Tom M

PS - BTW, I forgot to mention that if you do post a new image of your dog, make sure the resolution is at least 2000 pixels on a side. the current one is only about 600 pixels on a side and is barely big enough to work with.

 

[Paul]

Oh Tom the eyes, the eyes they are so god darn demonic, they are following me everywhere:mrgreen:

 

[Tom Mann]

...and they will continue to pierce thy soul until you brandish your brush and right what is wrong with them. Those who follow in my path must forsake the alluring simplicity of the hard edge of the devil's own black circle brush and make thy own ministrations upon this beast.



T

PS - BTW, I'm surprised you didn't pick up on the demonic ability of this animal to levitate his rear end an inch above the grass. LOL.

 

[Paul]

...and they will continue to pierce thy soul until you brandish your brush and right what is wrong with them. Those who follow in my path must forsake the alluring simplicity of the hard edge of the devil's own black circle brush and make thy own ministrations upon this beast.



T

PS - BTW, I'm surprised you didn't pick up on the demonic ability of this animal to levitate his rear end an inch above the grass. LOL.

Ass off the grass i see

 

[Paul]

wasn't me

 

[Tom Mann]

Hey, we better get back on topic before the OP thinks we're a bunch of loonies out on a day pass.

Tom (aka, the guy with the weird eyes)

 

[IamSam]

It's not perfect, but for a quick edit without going the extra mile, it might do. This is a PNG with a transparent BG so you can do whatever you want to with it. All I did was to create a mask (mostly hand made) and add some eyes by finding a suitable (google) dog, cutting them out with the Pen tool. If they are not the right color.......I tried. I painted some hairs back with the Brush tool, but when its reduced they wont be as obvious.

 

[Tom Mann]

Great job Sam. I particularly like the eyes!

T

 

[SamuelMSr]

Thank you all for the great suggestions and definitely for the work you guys did playing around with the photo. I went outside with Sadie this morning and took over 100 photos and about half an hour of video and got some nice stuff to play with.

Then I went on YouTube and watched quite a few videos on using the quick select tool and some other stuff and spent FOREVER cutting her out.

Then I found a background that I like, put her on it, added some text (the one thing I am ...decent at) and here is what I came up with:



Imagine on the bottom just under the dog all the info (number/name/expiration date, etc) and the visa logo and in the top right corner it says Zions Bank.

Again thanks a ton for everything! I really had a laugh with the eyes!! You guys have a great sense of humor and I love that.

So anyways, what do you guys think? And feel free to be critical on any of it, you cant learn if you cant take criticism.

Sam

 

[SamuelMSr]

Anyone have any thoughts on my masterpiece? Love getting feedback

Sent from my Galaxy Nexus using Tapatalk 2

 

[SamuelMSr]

Hey, we better get back on topic before the OP thinks we're a bunch of loonies out on a day pass.

Tom (aka, the guy with the weird eyes)

View attachment 36944

Hahaha nothing wrong with loonies! Life can't always be super serious, that's just to boring. Have to have fun every day.

And I love the picture of my dog with silly moving eyes! Hahaha

Sent from my Galaxy Nexus using Tapatalk 2

 

[Paul]

Your manipulation is cool, the dogs seems to be floating in the air though, good colour choices too.

 

[SamuelMSr]

Your manipulation is cool, the dogs seems to be floating in the air though, good colour choices too.

Ya the floating is OK because on the debit card she is sitting on the numbers on the card.

I would love to fix it where she is more sitting in a stage or something but I have no clue how to make it happen. I am going to turn the background back over where they are shining down instead of up, I turned it over the way it is because of the way the debit card is laid out.

So I want to turn the lights back over so they are shining down and put a stage of some sort so she is not floating and put the name above her.

Then I will print it on photo paper or maybe have it professionally printed and framed and have it forever.

So that's the overall plan, I just have to figure out how to make it look more natural like she is part of the picture and not floating in it.

Sent from my Galaxy Nexus using Tapatalk 2

 

[SamuelMSr]

This is what the debit card will look like. I will make a new one after I learn more of what I am doing with photoshop, the next one will be much better.

 

[Tom Mann]

Just make sure she doesn't charge too much on her new card.

T

 

[dv8_fx]

View attachment 36952


...... So anyways, what do you guys think? And feel free to be critical on any of it, you cant learn if you cant take criticism.

Sam

Now that is one spoiled, much loved pup.

I like what you've done so far.

As a thought, I wonder how the image will look if you duplicate the background and position it above the Sadie layer.... then play with the blend modes - to get an atmosphere/ambience of light focused at her, like a soft spotlight..........

 

[SamuelMSr]

Now that is one spoiled, much loved pup.

I like what you've done so far.

As a thought, I wonder how the image will look if you duplicate the background and position it above the Sadie layer.... then play with the blend modes - to get an atmosphere/ambience of light focused at her, like a soft spotlight..........

Yes, Sadie is super spoiled, probably a bit too much even.

I thought some of the same thing you are talking about. To have the spotlights going up and down and have them blended in the middle into a soft glow and have her in that glow.

I just have to learn how to do it, and that will take time.

 

[dv8_fx]

I've been trying to come up with something but didn't like the outcome. Most probably coz I was working on your image and trying to superimpose a spotlight background like yours. The outcome may be different if I had a layer of just Sadie in it.

I'll try again later in the day... this time with a layer copy of her without the background.

coming to 4 am and time for lizards to sleep.... lol