Select, Copy, Paste and Feather in PSP 7

   Here is the process that I believe Kris Zaklika described in the PSP newsgroup, for cleanly selecting a subject in an image to be copied and pasted to another image. The selection is feathered to make it appear more natural in the new image.

   For those of you who didn't follow the original thread in the newsgroup, Kris responded to my plea for help in cutting out a portrait and pasting it into a new background. I was isolating my portrait by selecting and deleting portions of a complex background, using the magic wand. Then I was trying to clean up the artifacts surrounding the image, on a pixel by pixel correction with the paint brush. I then pasted this image into a new background. The pasted image had sharp, distinct edges which I tried to fix by doing narrow selections of the edges with the freehand tool and applying a blur.

   I was expending hours of tedious work that resulted in a less than pleasing product. After Kris understood the problem I had, he posted alternative process instructions in the PSP newsgroup. You may view Kris' original instructions posted in the PSP newsgroup   here.

   The images shown here are products of the process done on the images that were originally on this web page, to reduce file sizes as much as possible. The process when done on my original images resulted in 2 files totaling 17 megs. The process done on these images resulted in a total of 8 megs.

   This page weighs in at 341k, so it shouldn't be too slow loading for dial-up connections. It took approximately 80 seconds to load on my dial-up connection.

    I own PSP 7.02, so everything was done in that version. I've never used any previous version so I have no idea how things might work in them. I did the entire process, including screen captures, exporting jpgs and making this web page, in about 3 hours.

   First, the image showing the original background, downsized for the web, as are all the examples shown here. Some of them are heavily compressed jpg's and show severe artifacts. The original was a 1600x1200 jpg taken with a Sony CD1000 digital camera at approximately 10x zoom in poor light.



    After processing the image with PSP's automatic photo enhancement tools for color, contrast and saturation, I began selecting portions inside the dog, using the freehand selection tool, anti-alias off, feather set at 0. The process is done in small parts, extending the selection each time by scrolling to the new area you want to select. I zoomed in on the image at 3:1, 4:1 and even 5:1 at times, while doing the selections.

   As a side note, I normally run PSP at 800x600 on my monitor. But, during this process I found it beneficial to run at 1280x960. That allows you to zoom and still see a large area of the image.

    After making your initial selection, hold down the shift key and place the cursor inside the marquee marking the area already selected, start marking and continue out into the new area you want to select. (example below) The shift key may be released once you're beyond the original marquee area. Select as much new area as you want and then loop back toward the center of your subject. I would suggest making your loop wide enough to make it easy to see and mark through later when you're finishing up by selecting the rest of the interior, as demonstrated below.



   At this point, you can release the cursor and PSP will automatically join the 2 points and then include the new selection into the old.

   If your selection includes areas that you don't want included, it is simple to fix. You remove portions of the selection by looping around the offensive pixels, holding down the Ctrl key instead of the Shift key. The part you don't want included should be outside your selection when you're done. You can also modify other selections made by the other selection tools in the same manner, adding with the Shift key and removing with the Ctrl key.

    Below are screen captures showing first a partial selection and the completed selection.





   The initial selection was saved to the Alpha channel as Selection 1. I then modified the selection, first by the contract tool set at 3 and then the feather tool set at 3 and lastly, saving it as contract 3 to the Alpha channel. I then reloaded Selection 1, applying the contraction and feathering modifications by 6, saved to the Alpha channel, reloaded Selection 1 applied the modifications at 12 and saved to the Alpha channel, each identified by the number of feathering applied. Below are screen captures showing first the Load From Alpha channel dialog and then the Selections menu, with the Modify menu selected and the Contract and Feather tools available. Also located on the Selections menu, are the Load From Alpha Channel and Save To Alpha Channel commands.




   The 3 differing modifications saved to the Alpha channel were done in order to be able to see which modified selection looked the best when applied to the background shown below.



   Each modified selection is then loaded from the Alpha channel and copied and pasted into the new background as a New Layer, using the copy/paste commands on the Edit menu.


    Each layer can then be positioned and toggled on/off to see which one looks the best using the Layer Palette, shown below.


   As a last touch, Clarify, set at 3 was used on this image. Clarify is found in Effects > Enhance Photo menu, shown below, along with the automatic Color, Contrast and Saturation tools that I used.


   Once you've determined your final image, the other layers can be deleted, if you wish, in the Layer Palette or menu. I would suggest saving the image in psp format, so you can easily change things later. The image is then ready to print or export to other formats, if desired. If your image is to be used on the web, try exporting in one of the export wizards  to see which one looks best. Gif's are generally better for text clarity.

   I agree with Kris, the layer with contract and feather tools set at 6, looks the best and is the image shown below. The sharp edges that were so distracting, especially on the left ear, are gone. The image no longer looks like a cut and paste job.



   The process is fast, accurate and easy, producing pleasing results. All the credit belongs to Kris Zaklika. Don't judge the process by the poor quality of the images on this page.

    If you want a demo, you can download the original jpg and the 4 selection files, in a 163k zip file, needed to obtain the same results  here. All you need to do is open the jpg and then follow the instructions above, substituting the already completed selections by choosing the load from disk option in the Selections menu, when you want to apply the 3 different levels of contract/feather. Of course, you can load the included original.sel file and contract/feather at any level you choose. IIRC, the .sel fils contract3, contract6 and contract12 already have the contract and feather levels set at the numbers indicated. Let me know if you try this and have problems.



   Many kudos and thanks to Kris for helping this newbie!

   I hope my description is some benefit to you. If you have trouble understanding something on this page, please let me know and I'll make changes to try to make it clearer. My email address is here.

   For the curious, the dog is an adult, female, Akita that weighs approximately 125 lbs. She is large for her breed. Female Akitas are usually under 100 lbs.

Kerry Pierce


This page created 6/4/01, last modified 6/11/01.