Cropping irregular shapes with Aperature

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Level 1

8 points

Cropping irregular shapes with Aperature

Forgive me if this is kind of basic but it's driving me crazy! Is there a way to crop an image in a photo that conforms to the image's outline - not just a square? For example, if I want to crop my dog's head from a photo, I want just the head, not any other background. Is this possible and, if so, how? I guess in Photoshop the tool is the "magnetic lasso" or some such... but I haven't used that either.

MacBook, Mac OS X (10.4.11)

Posted on Sep 25, 2008 3:30 PM

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Answer 1

Best reply

Moich

Level 2

480 points

Sep 25, 2008 6:43 PM in response to SierraDragon

Depends also how accurate a selection you want to make. If you want every hair of fur you certainly don't want to use anything as crude as the magnetic lasso tool. Quick select with refine edge (CS3 only), quick mask and the extract filters are all worth a look. Patience and experience are the key with extraction.
If however you only want a reasonably rough selection you'll find the tools in Pages'08 to be pretty useful (look for Alpha mask) and, as you suggested, the magnetic lasso in photoshop which will give your dog a haircut in the process.
Hope this helps.
M.

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Answer 2

Sep 25, 2008 5:04 PM in response to Paula K

Extracting an image from its background is a very advanced editing feature not yet available in Aperture. Look to Adobe Photoshop or (better) to Knockout 2 or to Fluid Mask.

No matter which app is used, extracting images is a painstaking process unless the background is a drastically different color (like a green screen, which introduces its own issues). It is by no means as quick and easy as the apps' advertising may imply.

Good Luck!

-Allen Wicks

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Answer 3

Paula K Author

Level 1

8 points

Sep 25, 2008 8:18 PM in response to SierraDragon

Thank you for the information. This really helps and I will stop pulling my hair out.

Paula

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