Affinity Photo selecting/cutting question

[true_blue1878]

This pic is just an example photo.. But I am trying to cut a woman out of a green forest background. How do you cut out the hair without taking some of the green glow with you? And is it possible to recolour the green parts back to the hairs natural colour with adjustments or too difficult to get it right? I've tried selecting the green bits and playing with sliders but just can't seem to get it right. I have also tried using the background remove brush over the hair but it either doesn't delete enough or it deletes some of the hair too. 

Any tips?

Cheers!

[v_kyr]

The easiest here (like in that above shown green screen sample) is always to use some software which knows to deal with green/blue screen backgrounds via chromakey handlings, like for example "Franzis CutOut v5 - v9", as it's usually just a one click operation with such apps ...

 

... though you can also finetune +/- what to cut out here with additional brushes, polygones ... etc. Note that such apps like CutOut 8 can be often found as free full version downloads on several sites. - Other similar apps are AFAI recall available from Topaz Lab, like their ReMask tool.

In APh you would perform in contrast to that a selection after the green background area and finetune/redefine that selection via masking etc. ...

... invert the made selection in order to cut out the main subject, or instead don't invert and remove the selected green screen background portions, so then everything else but the main subject.

 

 

[true_blue1878]

1 hour ago, v_kyr said:

The easiest here (like in that above shown green screen sample) is always to use some software which knows to deal with green/blue screen backgrounds via chromakey handlings, like for example "Franzis CutOut v5 - v9", as it's usually just a one click operation with such apps ...

 

 

... though you can also finetune +/- what to cut out here with additional brushes, polygones ... etc. Note that such apps like CutOut 8 can be often found as free full version downloads on several sites. - Other similar apps are AFAI recall available from Topaz Lab, like their ReMask tool.

In APh you would perform in contrast to that a selection after the green background area and finetune/redefine that selection via masking etc. ...

... invert the made selection in order to cut out the main subject, or instead don't invert and remove the selected green screen background portions, so then everything else but the main subject.

 

 

Thanks mate! I got CutOut8 and here is the English link to the official giveaway for anyone else who's interested. As you said, there are lots of websites who are offering it for free but I'd rather get the installer from the official site so its not bundled with crap;

https://reg.franzis.de/reg/COW-22260000/0/0/502/2.0/0/en/

I will go try that now and let you know how it goes! 

Cheers  

[true_blue1878]

3 hours ago, v_kyr said:

The easiest here (like in that above shown green screen sample) is always to use some software which knows to deal with green/blue screen backgrounds via chromakey handlings, like for example "Franzis CutOut v5 - v9", as it's usually just a one click operation with such apps ...

 

 

... though you can also finetune +/- what to cut out here with additional brushes, polygones ... etc. Note that such apps like CutOut 8 can be often found as free full version downloads on several sites. - Other similar apps are AFAI recall available from Topaz Lab, like their ReMask tool.

In APh you would perform in contrast to that a selection after the green background area and finetune/redefine that selection via masking etc. ...

... invert the made selection in order to cut out the main subject, or instead don't invert and remove the selected green screen background portions, so then everything else but the main subject.

 

 

Ok I tried it but it worked nothing as clear as yours did. It left black mess everywhere lol. If I move the curve mask then the black goes away somewhat, but so does some of the woman. 

It's a lot trickier than just the lady in the greenscreen!

Again these are just examples. Unfortunately, I can't post the project I am working on. But the problems are close enough the same. It seems to make the woman opaque when I increase the sensitivity enough to get rid of most of the BG. So there's a trade-off!

For now, I have just compromised and removed the black manually with eraser. It seems like I'll have to watch videos on CutOut as well for next time!!

But thanks for your help mate it worked much better than Affinity anyway!  

 

[v_kyr]

1 hour ago, true_blue1878 said:

Ok I tried it but it worked nothing as clear as yours did. It left black mess everywhere lol.

That's no green/blue screen image. Make yourself clear what a "green screen" as shown in your first portrait example image is & means! - What you tried last is a common nature background with a bunch of different colors and thus/so no green/blue screen background. The later is used for portrait shootings and cinematic effects etc.

For what you have now, the nature background girl shot, select/mark the subject (the girl) or the nature background and finetune the selection of that.

[firstdefence]

You can use the Stock Panel for example images. 

[v_kyr]

For the CutOut tool, you've to learn it's options and how to make use out of those then ...

[true_blue1878]

2 hours ago, v_kyr said:

That's no green/blue screen image. Make yourself clear what a "green screen" as shown in your first portrait example image is & means! - What you tried last is a common nature background with a bunch of different colors and thus/so no green/blue screen background. The later is used for portrait shootings and cinematic effects etc.

For what you have now, the nature background girl shot, select/mark the subject (the girl) or the nature background and finetune the selection of that.

I totally appreciate your patience and help, but I did say a "green forest background". But the green screen was the best example I could find because the hair was scattered/messy so it picked up lots of green light. My question was how do you remove the green light "contamination" from the hair after you've cut it out? You've done a brilliant job, but even yours has some green contamination left on the hair.  

Nevertheless, you've taught me a lot, so thank you! Your post will help me do a MUCH better job  I will try to be more clear next time too. 

1 hour ago, v_kyr said:

For the CutOut tool, you've to learn it's options and how to make use out of those then ...

That is really neat! There is still some green on the bottom-left of the hair but it's still excellent!

I will try to match what you've done and see if I can learn how to do it that good.

Cheers

[v_kyr]

1 hour ago, true_blue1878 said:

My question was how do you remove the green light "contamination" from the hair after you've cut it out? You've done a brilliant job, but even yours has some green contamination left on the hair.

I've just done a very quick inner-/outer matting take with it, you can additionally use the injection remove tool there (see the help (?) for CutOut, on the top right side) for those finer green light parts in differentiation for that image. - The CutOut tool's help tells and visually shows you how to use the different tools therefor.

[firstdefence]

I have Super PhotoCutout Pro which does a similar thing to Franzis Cutout, I'm not really impressed with either app on more complex backgrounds and I don't think there is much advantage over simply using Affinity's selection options.

For fine flyaway hair I normally cut it away and repaint it in with the smudge tool set to 2px or a size relative to the resolution of the image but something that gets me a fine hair strand, set Strength to 99% and vary the flow percentage to get the length of the hair strand. So, the higher the flow percentage, the longer the hair strand that can be pulled out.

If you have duplicated the image you can see where the hair strands need to go and this produces a nicer look and better cutout, certainly looks better than trying to remove the background from between hairs which generally looks blocky.
 

[v_kyr]

30 minutes ago, firstdefence said:

I have Super PhotoCutout Pro which does a similar thing to Franzis Cutout, I'm not really impressed with either app on more complex backgrounds and I don't think there is much advantage over simply using Affinity's selection options.

Such apps are mostly time savers for green/blue screen background shots, as the OP has shown in his first image posting. As that's where they come in to be handy, if you have a lot of such portrait shots to deal with.

For other not uniform and very complex backgrounds they offer selection wise just what other common apps & photo editing tools offer here too. - Nowadays there are AI driven tools, which often do an overall much better one click job here than manually fiddling around with making selections.

[firstdefence]

4 hours ago, v_kyr said:

Such apps are mostly time savers for green/blue screen background shots, as the OP has shown in his first image posting. As that's where they come in to be handy, if you have a lot of such portrait shots to deal with.

For other not uniform and very complex backgrounds they offer selection wise just what other common apps & photo editing tools offer here too. - Nowadays there are AI driven tools, which often do an overall much better one click job here than manually fiddling around with making selections.

Agreed, I still prefer using the pen tool for the best cutouts, reusable and easily tweak-able, it offers flexibility, the minus is, it can be slow unless you are quite adept with the pen tool. You can rough it out and fine-tune afterwards.

[true_blue1878]

17 hours ago, v_kyr said:

I've just done a very quick inner-/outer matting take with it, you can additionally use the injection remove tool there (see the help (?) for CutOut, on the top right side) for those finer green light parts in differentiation for that image. - The CutOut tool's help tells and visually shows you how to use the different tools therefor.

Yeah, I can tell you did it quickly, but that's also what impressed me, as the separation of the hair from the background was quite good. The way I've been doing it in Affinity is quite painstaking if I don't want "blockiness"!

I used to think I just want everything in the same app for ease, as my memory is pretty awful, so too much information is difficult for me to digest… but now I see that I have been hampering myself with that mentality. @firstdefence recommended Inkscape to me the other day too, which is brilliant and saved me buying something else to vectorise with.

8 hours ago, firstdefence said:

I have Super PhotoCutout Pro which does a similar thing to Franzis Cutout, I'm not really impressed with either app on more complex backgrounds and I don't think there is much advantage over simply using Affinity's selection options.

For fine flyaway hair I normally cut it away and repaint it in with the smudge tool set to 2px or a size relative to the resolution of the image but something that gets me a fine hair strand, set Strength to 99% and vary the flow percentage to get the length of the hair strand. So, the higher the flow percentage, the longer the hair strand that can be pulled out.

If you have duplicated the image you can see where the hair strands need to go and this produces a nicer look and better cutout, certainly looks better than trying to remove the background from between hairs which generally looks blocky.
 

7 hours ago, v_kyr said:

Such apps are mostly time savers for green/blue screen background shots, as the OP has shown in his first image posting. As that's where they come in to be handy, if you have a lot of such portrait shots to deal with.

For other not uniform and very complex backgrounds they offer selection wise just what other common apps & photo editing tools offer here too. - Nowadays there are AI driven tools, which often do an overall much better one click job here than manually fiddling around with making selections.

That is what I was asking originally… do people just literally repaint the hair or is there a trick? I guess it's the former? Because you get light reflection + compression contamination if it's from a format that's been compressed. So if you want to pull the model out and put her on a completely different background, it won't look right. That greenscreen photo was just the best example I could find on google, so I apologise if it was misleading in my OP. 

Will check out the Super PC.

Have you tried the new Samsung and Google Pixel AI software? It looks impressive on the adverts, but not enough for me to buy a new phone over.. 

[v_kyr]

1 hour ago, true_blue1878 said:

Yeah, I can tell you did it quickly, but that's also what impressed me, as the separation of the hair from the background was quite good. The way I've been doing it in Affinity is quite painstaking if I don't want "blockiness"!

CutOut is algorithmic much smarter in detecting any pixel color similarities & differences here than for example APh's selection tools.

1 hour ago, true_blue1878 said:

I used to think I just want everything in the same app for ease, as my memory is pretty awful, so too much information is difficult for me to digest… but now I see that I have been hampering myself with that mentality. @firstdefence recommended Inkscape to me the other day too, which is brilliant and saved me buying something else to vectorise with.

In terms of tracing/vectorization Inkscape is pretty good, as it uses two well known but enhanced tracers together under the hood (namely Potrace & AutoTrace here). The Inkscape team for example enhanced Potrace so it performs a quite good color quantization and thus can trace color images, which the default Potrace didn't supported right out of the box. And for centerline tracing (which many common tracers don't support) they reuse the right parts from AutoTrace here.

1 hour ago, true_blue1878 said:

That is what I was asking originally… do people just literally repaint the hair or is there a trick? I guess it's the former? ...

It's at least quicker to do that way, so to overcome with possible left over background color pixels and especially things like fine shine through hair regions. Otherwise you have to mask over/out those left over finer color difference areas etc.

1 hour ago, true_blue1878 said:

That greenscreen photo was just the best example I could find on google

Greenscreen shots are ideal for certain portrait/people shootings & video recordings, mostly those where you know from start up that you want to cut out/release the model from the background of a taken photo (or video) in order to place the model on some other backgrounds/scenes.

1 hour ago, true_blue1878 said:

Have you tried the new Samsung and Google Pixel AI software? It looks impressive on the adverts, but not enough for me to buy a new phone over.

Google's no not so far, the last AI tool I tried out was Segment Anything from Meta AI, but with mixed results and feelings.

[firstdefence]

1 hour ago, true_blue1878 said:

Have you tried the new Samsung and Google Pixel AI software? It looks impressive on the adverts, but not enough for me to buy a new phone over.. 

I'm an Apple fanboy so it's iPhone for me.