Removing background automaticly from multiply images

[afvell]

First, I want to say Hi, cause I'm new to this forum and I hope to write here more in the future. And I don't hide that I came here looking for some help.
Here is my problem.

I've got about 3000 photos, in which I want to remove background automaticly without selecting shape manually. Photos have white, or nearly white background, and simple shapes (bottles) , in links below You've got some samples:

It is not a problem for me to manually cut the shape out, but with this amount of photos I'd like to use some tool to save time. I think I need some action which could select a shape of a bottle and modify it to remove background around. I don't expect miracles, also I'm a little worried about those photos which have gradient in the background, but still I think it is doable.

I have no idea how to force photoshop to do what I need. I searched the web looking for some automated solution and everything I found needed human hand to select some shape, also opening and saving each of 3000 files would be exausting, and I know I can use action to do this stuff for me.

I'd like to write some action but I don't know where to start, I don't know if there even exist some tools which could select my bottle shape, basing on e.g. edge contrast.

I hope some proffessionals here have some experience in stuff like this and could help me with my problem, any hint or advice is appreciated.

 

[SeniorS]

You'll have to wait maybe some very very experience PSman will suggest something.
But my call is that it is imposible.
Your stuff looks like for commercial (some shop) brochure and then it need to be more or less good.
And there is to small color diference between object(or part of them) and background.
Last one, i don't think is can be done anything else but by pen tool to be in acceptable quality.
So my verdict is no.
Maybe if you have some amount of more contrast images then you can make action for them.
Like record magic wand (test which Toleranc works best for you) to select in left corner then invert selection, then Layer/New/Layer via Copy.
Then delete background layer then save it as tif. Stop action.
You can try that but only with images with bigger contrast than those which you showed. Even black bottle isn't good enough for that becouse of cap.

Best way is pen tool. Use it. Such images with practice in pathing can make about 20-30 in hour. So 1/2 month
And i again assume that it for commercial so money don't come easy

 

[iDad]

if they were all the same size or shape I would say action would do that but from what I see you have a lot of work ahead of you.

 

[hawkeye]

Unless they were identical it's nothing that could be automated. The best method IMO would be a vector mask with the pen tool.

 

[SeniorS]

you have a lot of work ahead of you.

Exactly. And i want to say that you are lucky to have 3000 bottles to path
I remember i had by-work and get paid by image count. There was lot of bottles, fridges etc. but there was things like bikes and jewellery too.
That's hell. To get about 1$ (that was very long ago i think now it's getted cheaper) for 3hour work (in sum of all images of course it wasn't so bad) Anyway that was significant experience. Enjoy it.

 

[afvell]

I thought that there is some algorithm or plug-in to PS which can select shapes and that photoshop can automaticly extract some layers, kinda selflearning script, I suppose it was fairytale then.

hmm I'm gonna start working then and try to use mentioned pen tool.
I know it's hell after this I think I'll never drink again..

of course thank You guys for Your advice and time

One more question, If I had those 3000 photos of bottles made in the same settings on sime white background in non-shadow box by some good camera like, nikon D80, would it be still impossible?

 

[Hoogle]

Ok I know this might sound to simple to be true but cant you create an action and then click the magic eraser set tolerence to 12 or whatever is the best average tolerence click the background save the action and then batch process that action I know it is not going to be excellent results on all of them but here is what I got with just 2 random pics. Admittedly you will need to touch some up but as you can see there is still a lot of work needed to be done but depending what size it will be and background it is a good start.

 

[angnangita]

Ok I know this might sound to simple to be true but cant you create an action and then click the magic eraser set tolerence to 12 or whatever is the best average tolerence click the background save the action and then batch process that action I know it is not going to be excellent results on all of them but here is what I got with just 2 random pics. Admittedly you will need to touch some up but as you can see there is still a lot of work needed to be done but depending what size it will be and background it is a good start.
View attachment 5901View attachment 5902

yes this is the best the you can do.. it can save a lot of time, the only problem is you have create clipping path first on all of the images and run the action..

 

[johnquest]

wow that's a lot of photos to work with. let me know when you find a way to automate what you wanna do.

 

[johnquest]

have you tried using Actions to automate tasks?

 

[Paul MR]

One possible solution would be to take two picture of the product the second picture with only backlighting so this can be used as a mask.