Need help removing a background in Affinity Photo

[chriscaldwell]

Hello,

I have 2 photos that I need some assistance with removing the background. I've tried to use a tolerance of 5% with the selection brush and have tried Refine, but there's a portion of each photo that has a similar color as the object. If someone could help me with this, I'd be grateful. I have attached two photos of the object.

Thank you so much for any help!

Chris

[Brian_J]

An alternate approach to using selection tools is to create vector shapes that outline the product and create a mask from the shapes. Because of the product's shape, most of the vector shapes can be created using the Ellipse Tool, which makes it easier than outlining the entire product using the Pen Tool.

Steps:

• Create multiple vector shapes using the Ellipse Tool and Pen Tool that make up the shape of the product. (I only used the Pen Tool for the cylinder and chain.)
• Ctrl-click all the vector shape layers' thumbnails to create a pixel selection.
• Create a mask from the pixel selection

I don't have much experience using the selection tools for hard-to-select subject matter. Someone else may be able to provide guidance for using adjustment layers or other techniques to increase the contrast to make selection tools more effective.

(.afphoto file attached)

Remove bg.afphoto

[chriscaldwell]

Brian_J, this was brilliant! I never even considered using the shapes. Cannot thank you enough. I love this software and have learned another technique thanks to you!

[Brian_J]

@chriscaldwell Awesome, glad I could help!

[firstdefence]

For future photographs I would invest in either a lightbox or a large sheet of A1 bright white card and a cool led light. 

[chriscaldwell]

Hello firstdefence, I bought a large white tri-fold foam board, but can you expand on the cool red light? Why red? And is there a specific light for this purpose that you would recommend? Thank you!

 

[chriscaldwell]

Brian_J,

I'm trying to repeat your steps on the next image and must be missing something.

1. I have created an ellipse around the circular object.

2. I Control-clicked on the vector "ellipse" layer, but all I get is a dropdown menu and I'm assuming I'm supposed to choose rasterize? (BTW I'm on a Mac, so was wondering if Control-click might be different.) I click rasterize, and the pixel layer is blank. So not sure why I'm not getting a pixel selection around the object?

Thank you,

Chris 

[Alfred]

3 hours ago, chriscaldwell said:

(BTW I'm on a Mac, so was wondering if Control-click might be different.)

That’s the problem! Ctrl on Windows is not the same as Control on macOS, except for the odd few things (such as clearing your user data in any of the Affinity apps). You need to Cmd-click instead.

[Brian_J]

4 hours ago, chriscaldwell said:

(BTW I'm on a Mac, so was wondering if Control-click might be different.)

Yes, as @Alfred pointed out, it's a different modifier key on Mac. I also forgot to mention the shortcut to add to a selection is Command+Shift-click.

To create the selection, with the mask shape layers visibility toggled on (so the shapes are visible on the canvas):

1. Command-click the first layer thumbnail
2. Command+Shift-click the remaining layer thumbnails to add to the selection

[chriscaldwell]

Thank you for the clarification! This was very helpful indeed.