Difficult selection

[kjhelm]

My wife creates using chainmail and I photograph it. The mesh pattern makes it difficult to do selections to remove backgrounds or make adjustments to backgrounds. I've included a sample file. This has a very dark background I would like to change to white.

[Hangman]

Hi @kjhelm and welcome to the forums,

It would help dramatically if you light your background, i.e., place lights behind the jewellery left and right to evenly light the background. This would help separate the jewellery from the background and if you light it correctly you could completely avoid the need to make any selections to remove the background.

Note: Other videos are available explaining similar concepts…

[PaulEC]

Also, use a background that doesn’t have creases or bumps in it1 it is actually much easier to get the lighting and background right in the first place, (especially for product shots) rather than trying to improve it afterwards.

[carl123]

If you do a lot of this sort of photography it's probably worth investing in a lightbox, they don't cost that much

 

 

 

[Dazzler]

Because you have the chain in there that contains some of the same tonal range as the background it's making life difficult. You can either do what others have suggested and improve the original shot using a light box or similar,  or alteratively go down more of a greenscreen style technique where you actually use a coloured background with the intention of having something that is then different to the foreground making selections easier - just make sure it's not reflecting that colour on the front side (which it shouldn't so long as the colour is behind it).

You could probably still make a selection with what you have but you'd have to use the Flood select tool set on add mode and click into each of the individual holes. I tried the normal refine method and it sort of works but it's not 100%. With the flood select you're getting more the effect you want with it stopping at the edges of each ring. Sounds horrendous to do but it's actually not too bad in practice ... took me about a minute or two to select all the holes on one of the earrings, and if you have a higher res image available then it should be even easier to do if you zoom in.

[Pšenda]

16 hours ago, kjhelm said:

My wife creates using chainmail and I photograph it.

If you want to please your wife with a nice picture, I recommend taking the picture again. No offense, but this is an example of how it shouldn't be done 🙂

1. it is essential to use a non-wrinkled background without a sharp transition between the vertical and horizontal walls. That is, a large/straight piece of paper that is placed under the photographed object, and behind it is evenly bent into a vertical plane (as can be seen in the example of the lightbox). It is possible to use larger wrapping paper - it doesn't have to be pure white, or fabric - maybe even colored. Depending on the photographed object, you can try different materials, for example, linen fabric could match the earrings in an interesting way. Or some velvet fabric, fabric with an interesting pattern/texture that complements or highlights the photographed object - there are no limits to creativity 🙂

2. You're using two light sources - which is good, but they're too strong/pointy, so it creates two sharp and distracting shadows. It is necessary to diffuse the light a little - for example with parchment paper or some white matte foil (diffuser). Alternatively, it is possible to direct the lights away from the object and use reflective plates - white papers. This will also reduce glare from the earrings.
Although this will reduce the lighting, but considering that it is a static object and that you are shooting from a tripod (I assume), the extension of time should not be a problem. In any case, pay attention to the ISO (as low as possible) so that you don't have to deal with noise unnecessarily and degrade the image further.

3. Pay attention to quality focus - try manual.

4. Pay attention to the white balance when mixing multiple types of light sources. It is possible to use a piece of white paper or an original gray table.

[carl123]

Here's a rough clean up using the Select Sample Colour command on the background and then deleting it (5 or 6 passes on different areas)

Magnified portion of the chainlink supplied so you can see what detail is left

 

[v_kyr]

Well as other people already suggested, the overall best way to deal with this is right up when taking the shots. So to use the right backgrounds and lighting conditions here. That then eases any possible afterwards image manipulations like making main objects cut outs, background exchanges and the like.

For example when doing portrait shots and depending on a models hair color and clothing colors (blondes on gray/black bg, dark haired on white/light gray bg), I always also do place them in front of some different colored background, which clearly stands out from them, so that I can cutout them relatively easily later if needed.

The same applies to product shots, where I would take several shots with different background colors too.

If you can't repeat the shots, then try out some AI based online background remove tool, some of them do quite a good job of removing backgrounds.

[Pšenda]

1 hour ago, v_kyr said:

with different background colors

... I will add to my opinion - if you look at professional pictures of jewelry on the Internet, they are never on a sterile and boring looking pure white background. On the contrary, they are always composed and arranged on some colorful fabrics with an interesting texture, natural stones, wood and the like, so as to highlight the character of the jewelry.
This can be added when the background is removed from the photo, but then it is quite laborious - to make it look natural, i.e. to have the right shadows and highlights.

[Hangman]

2 minutes ago, Pšenda said:

I will add to my opinion - if you look at professional pictures of jewelry on the Internet, they are never on a sterile and boring looking pure white background. On the contrary, they are always composed and arranged on some colorful fabrics with an interesting texture, natural stones, wood and the like, so as to highlight the character of the jewelry.

A good example of this can be found by typing jewellery into Etsy...

[v_kyr]

1 hour ago, Pšenda said:

...if you look at professional pictures of jewelry on the Internet, they are never on a sterile and boring looking pure white background...

IF and WHEN, I believe the OP is probably no long time versatile product shooting Pro here and so more an occasionally photo shooter in this area. Further he wanted now to have a white background for an already taken shot, instead of a prearranged decorated ambient background. And for what he already did so far, in order to (ex)change backgrounds then via software by cutting-out, the way I described is at least then easier feasable.

[kjhelm]

Wow! This is an active forum. Thank you all for your suggestions. I'll be implementing a lot of the photography suggestions. I had tried the select by color with mixed results, but I had no idea that you could do more than one pass, so I'll give that a try as well. Thanks again for your time and effort in helping someone who is just learning.

[thomaso]

4 hours ago, carl123 said:

Here's a rough clean up using the Select Sample Colour command on the background and then deleting it (5 or 6 passes on different areas)

Looks great! Just curious: did your workflow affect the object too (and thus remove or recolour tiny parts of it) – or is there a way avoid this?

[kjhelm]

I tried a couple of the suggestions and this photo in unretouched. The lighting video was really helpful. I'll try other suggestions as I go along, but it's already so much better. Thanks to everyone who responded.