Challenge: background blur

[greenmorpher]

Magnetic lasso? See Kraig's explanatory post.

Can we duplicate this kind of effect in PhotoLine? Obviously, yes, if we can get a good clean image of the girl out -- but that's the stumbling block, isn't it? Or am I missing something again?

Cheers, geoff

Geoffrey Heard
Business & Environment Writer, Editor, Publisher
The Worsley Press
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[Hoogo]

...What ?? Who's Kraig, and what problems do you have with his girl?

[Sus]

Assuming you are referring to
http://forums.dpreview.com/forums/read. ... e=38622541
it can be done with your eyes closed (almost)
Just put the selection in a new layer.
From the background select a colom of say 10 pixel width, blur it (do not use transparency) and resize it to picture width: that's all
My attempt shown below

[greenmorpher]

My apologies, folks, I forgot to paste in the DPreview URL. But yes, Sus, that's the one, but I don't get what you have done. "colom"? Line? And then and then? Can you go through it step by step? Or better, do it on the DPreview site, and then everyone can read it there.

Cheers, geoff

[akeller]

Well, that's fun

[Sus]

Another version using a working layers is also worth trying.
Without doubt the experts on this board will come up with shorter and/or easier methods!
After all it is a challenge isn't it?

[greenmorpher]

That part of it is clear enough, Sus, but it is the matter of isolating the girl in PL that is my real interest -- the P'shop user had the "magnetic lasso".

Cheers, geoff

[Hoogo]

"...selected the runner using mostly the Magnetic Lasso..."
I guess the magnetic lasso of PS is very similar to the magnetic lasso of PL (hidden beneath the usual rectangular lasso). It will work best on sharp edges, an well enough for almost the whole girl. It will not work on her hair, though.

Easiest way for a simple selection would be to create the selection, right-click on it and choose "...convert SELECTION to layer..." from the menu. The selected girl will end on her own layer. You might now add a new background and use the eraser to clean up her hair.

But this way you might get some trouble when later blurring the edges to blend her into the background. Better use a layer mask:
-add the new background at the beginning, have the girl on top of the background.
-create the selection.
-at the bottom of the layer palette you find "create layer mask". Choose "create from mask". The result should be very similar to the more simple way, but now you have an own layer for the selected area, you can work with filters on it or use kind of brush to work on her hair.

[greenmorpher]

Hey Hoogo and Sus

Yes -- using PhotoLine's magnetic lasso! Goddammit, I knew it was there but I completely forgot about it because I don't do this stuff that much and to tell the honest truth, I learned to do this with masks back in P'shop very early versions (long before its lasso was magnetized!), then I adapted to Canvas (lasso, masks, or vector outline used as a clipping tool), and now I am using both Canvas and PhotoLine but I am getting a bit seriously old and I don't remember new stuff so well as I used to. In addition, I'm not doing stuff as much as I used to do. So I used the magnetic lasso a few months ago and ... it just disappeared into some empty hole in my head.

So yes -- having completed the challenge the yesterday in Canvas, I went back to it this morning in PL and rediscovered the magnetic lasso. As I said, I don't remember stuff as well as I used to do, but also I would have noticed it yesterday if the icons had been a little larger. Good grief, who said that? Who said larger icons? And maybe slightly larger palettes?

And, of course, it would be nice if it was documented!

Hoogo, regarding hair and stuff -- no, the lasso won’t do a perfect job but neither will a mask in my experience. There is a tool in P'shop I have seen demonstrated which is a kind of brush-on mask, and that will do better if you use it well and take a little time.

But using PLs magnetic lasso comes up with a pretty good result. In fact, very good. Don't forget that in the tool palette, you can adjust the tolerance and edge softness of the lasso. That makes a big difference.

Anyway -- I've posted to dpreview my effort in PhotoLine:
http://forums.dpreview.com/forums/read. ... e=38650123

As I noted there, I did a bit of a rough job on the background because it was just for illustration of the technique rather than an attempt at a finished job.

You know what would be really cool?

1) Being able to correct a lasso as you went. If you, or the magnetic lasso, run off track a bit, it would be great if you could undo that back to the last click or undo step by step until you go back to a point you were happy with. With the magnetic lasso, for example, you can find that it has a mind of its own a bit and you and will include/exclude stuff that's not right -- say going around a curve where the contrast between what you want in and what you want out is not too strong but if you do smaller increments, perhaps, it will follow the curve better. So if you could go back one or two moves then approach the troublesome area again you get a much better result. As it is, you can go back to the start point of the problem and click, but you still leave a trace behind which will cut out a line in the subsequent selection.

2) Being able to correct a lasso after you have completed it by pushing or dragging it into shape. Theoretically, you can do this by converting the lasso to a layer in the Tool > Lasso menu, which converts it to a vector, then you correct the vector, then convert the vector layer back into a lasso in the Tool > Lasso menu again. But if you are using the freehand lasso, there are so many points generated that correcting gets to be a really, really fiddly and very messy job. I think you also lose the lasso softness attribute in this case too, a significant disadvantage. I remember back in Freehand 8 vector program there was a little "push" tool you could use to reshape a (vector) line without having to tackle the individual points. You could set the diameter of the tool, or the shape of it, if I remember rightly, just in the same way as you do a brush in PL or other raster programs. You could then use that shape to push against a line to reshape it (in that vector case, it would create new points and/or move handles on existing points to set the new shape). Think about how a tool like that which you could apply to a lasso would dramatically improve lasso work! You could do a pretty rough lasso, then push it into shape with various pusher tool shapes. It would be magic.

Possible? I don't know. Obviously, a raster lasso is as quite different thing from a vector line. But it would be very, very handy.

Cheers, geoff

Geoffrey Heard
Business & Environment Writer, Editor, Publisher
The Worsley Press

[Hoogo]

Usually I used the magnetic lasso to create a selection. Then I converted the lasso to layer, just to turn it into a vector. Then I used "Layout > vector > optimize vector" to simplify it and remove most of the points. I had no need to convert the vector back to a selection, I just used the "layer mask > convert for previous" at the bottom of th layer list to turn it into a layer mask. A layer mask has a soft-edge-attribute for its own, so I do not miss the soft edge while creating the vector.

For some more tricks: Put the vector into a group and turn that group into a layer mask. Then you might add some more layers for different portions of the picture, or use filter layers to blur edges by yourself.

Currently I try the "curve creation tool", hidden beneath the "create line tool", to create a vector by hand. Nothing magnetic, but works very well.

[bkh]

You know what would be really cool?

1) Being able to correct a lasso as you went. If you, or the magnetic lasso, run off track a bit, it would be great if you could undo that back to the last click or undo step by step until you go back to a point you were happy with. With the magnetic lasso, for example, you can find that it has a mind of its own a bit and you and will include/exclude stuff that's not right -- say going around a curve where the contrast between what you want in and what you want out is not too strong but if you do smaller increments, perhaps, it will follow the curve better. So if you could go back one or two moves then approach the troublesome area again you get a much better result. As it is, you can go back to the start point of the problem and click, but you still leave a trace behind which will cut out a line in the subsequent selection.

You can - just press "backspace" and you'll be back at the previous point - you can undo as many steps as you like.

2) Being able to correct a lasso after you have completed it by pushing or dragging it into shape. Theoretically, you can do this by converting the lasso to a layer in the Tool > Lasso menu, which converts it to a vector, then you correct the vector, then convert the vector layer back into a lasso in the Tool > Lasso menu again.

If you want to use the lasso for cropping, then it's easier to use "Tool -> Lasso -> Convert to Clipping layer". You can then edit the curve in the clipping layer while previewing what it does when cropping.

But if you are using the freehand lasso, there are so many points generated that correcting gets to be a really, really fiddly and very messy job.

In this situation, I find Layout -> Vector -> Optimize Vector Layer a very useful tool. It allows to cut down the number of vector points (of course, you'll lose some precision as well, but for most cases, it works really well). You can have PL do that automatically when you draw freehand curves - there are similar settings under Preferences -> Working -> Vector, but they don't affect the magnetic lasso.

I think you also lose the lasso softness attribute in this case too, a significant disadvantage.

"Tool -> Lasso -> Convert to Clipping layer" retains the softness. You can also change the softness in the "Attributes" pane for the clipping layer.

When you use a vector clipping layer, you can
I remember back in Freehand 8 vector program there was a little "push" tool you could use to reshape a (vector) line without having to tackle the individual points. You could set the diameter of the tool, or the shape of it, if I remember rightly, just in the same way as you do a brush in PL or other raster programs. You could then use that shape to push against a line to reshape it (in that vector case, it would create new points and/or move handles on existing points to set the new shape). Think about how a tool like that which you could apply to a lasso would dramatically improve lasso work! You could do a pretty rough lasso, then push it into shape with various pusher tool shapes. It would be magic.

Moving many vector points at a time is probably difficult. I'd probably start with only a few vector points, adding more points as needed. Alternatively,
why don't you convert your vector layer into a bitmap one and work on that with a brush? You could even convert it back to a vector outline, once you are done (at least if it's still black and white).

Cheers

Burkhard.

[greenmorpher]

You know what would be really cool?

When you use a vector clipping layer, you can
I remember back in Freehand 8 vector program there was a little "push" tool you could use to reshape a (vector) line without having to tackle the individual points. You could set the diameter of the tool, or the shape of it, if I remember rightly, just in the same way as you do a brush in PL or other raster programs. You could then use that shape to push against a line to reshape it (in that vector case, it would create new points and/or move handles on existing points to set the new shape). Think about how a tool like that which you could apply to a lasso would dramatically improve lasso work! You could do a pretty rough lasso, then push it into shape with various pusher tool shapes. It would be magic.

Moving many vector points at a time is probably difficult. I'd probably start with only a few vector points, adding more points as needed. Alternatively,
why don't you convert your vector layer into a bitmap one and work on that with a brush? You could even convert it back to a vector outline, once you are done (at least if it's still black and white).

Many thanks, Burkhardt, for pointing to the various workarounds, in particular the use of the backspace/delete key to move backwards when doing the magnetic lasso. Tht's a great facility! Is it documented?

On this final point, though, I really would like to see a push/pull tool so we could work directly on the magnetic lasso. The more directly we can go to stuff and do it, the better. Maybe the kind of workarounds you are pointing to are a pathway for the building of a lasso push/pull tool. If such a tool would work more conveniently in vector, then the selection of the tool would automatically convert the lasso to vector, you could do your reshaping, and when finished, the vector would convert back to the lasso with the same softness attribute as before. Obviously, the tool would also be available for vector too.

Having a tool that would do this kind of job would be great because it would make things simple. One of the problems with a complex app (as PhotoLine is and must necessarily be to achieve its high level of functionality) is not only the learning curve to reach proficiency in using the app to its full potential, but also in remembering the series of actions you require when you are an ordinary user. A few years ago, I might have been going through a process like we've been talking about here every second week, but I'm semi-retired now so I am not using any of my "creative" apps every day as I used to do, and I might want to do two or three cut-outs like this in a year. Where a complex series of actions is required, I simply don't remember them. I can't remember them! So straightforward stuff is the go for me.

Besides -- a push/pull tool like I've suggested would also make a great new selling point for PhotoLine! I know a number of people who would regard it as a knock-out.

Cheers, geoff