Well I'm abysmal working with images, but I was needing endlessly how to crop images to a certain selection..

For instance if I have a pic of a lion running in grasslands with a batch of buffalo herd, I'd like to crop it to freehand to eliminate everything in the background to just its face including the ears, exactly fit.

Nothing like drawing a rectangle, oval, circle or square etc around it or even clipping amounts of a side totally off.

Is there anything like this available or what and how is it done?

I have GIMP2 etc and many other Photo editing applications.

Thanks for helping

Can you post the pic here? Upload it in the thread?

I have it but cropped it wrongly (first attachment) and it missed everything including the lion and cross the stream landscape. I was "soft cropping" it in Babaya Workshop Professional 12 when it crashed and its ended up giving me a totally cropped picture

I thought it would never save when crashing I posted the pic a little while back to a friend who runs a zoo and owns the site for it, but her address is stored in a PDA down at London flats while I'm not too far off from Shetland Island here now.

I have 2 more pics here on my system and they look like they're from online somewhere as I don't recall taking or seeing them. The last one is also another one I took in Nepal which I'd like to crop customized bits of... even pics with writing on, how would that be removed yet the background stays intact?

I don't think there's a way, but I don't know.

Thanks.

Hi,

I'm not a complete expert on this, but i think the way forward here is a program called Photoshop. I dont know it like the back of my hand, but there a few VERY impressive tools to be used in this package. The cropping can be done freehand or there is an automatic one (called the magic-tool) where you aim at the centre of the bit you want cropping (i.e. lions head) and photoshop tries to do it for you by using the colours most associated with the pixel you chose, and detecting the edges of where you want cropping by a serious colour change. (I.e. the colour of the lions fur to the grren of the grass) - however i've tried using the magic tool before on peoples faces and it doesn't always select what i want. But theres is definately a freehand option on here.

As for removing text, you'll never get the original picture behind the text because it was replaced with the colour of the text. The best you can do is use the clone-stamp tool in photoshop. This is the tool i use most in photoshop. It clones one part of a picture to another point in the picture. If your text is infront of a bunch of trees, its quite easy to clone the trees around the text to where the text is, and if you sit there for hours perfecting it, you'll never know the text was there. Its mainly used for transplanting heads and hair and stuff like that, and if used correctly, can give exceptionally good effects. You can go as far as taking shiny alloy wheels off a bling bling Max Power car, and clone them onto a picture of your shabby looking Austin Metro (just to see what a metro would look like rolling on 24 inch chrome TSW's)

All in all - i would definately recommend photoshop for your query. Its got thousands of nifty photoediting tools (i've just listed two). It's absolutely brilliant. (Was that me advertising Adobe or what...!?!?)

Any questions, let me know,

Steve.

Hi Kazna3. I use Paintshop Pro 11 and it has the option to draw a freehand smart point to point selection around part of an image. I dont know if your programs have that.
Removing writing is easy, I use the clone brush. If you want I can do them for you or help you work through them yourself.
I did a tutorial years ago that may help a bit, using Paintshop Pro. http://members.dodo.com.au/~tessc/ralphs.htm

I took about 30 seconds to do a rough go of the lions head.

You can get a trial version of the older Paintshop Pro 8 here http://www.oldversion.com/download.p...02e1d879f50d17

Hi Steve, Tassie

Well I have many photo editing apps, quite a few in Linux and Mac too. Yesterday Windows XP failed to load so I had to do a complete reinstall to be on the safe side. I had Adobe Photoshop CS2, Picasa2, IrfanView, SnagIt, PhotoEditor, PhotoToolkit, Corel PSP 11, Ulead PhotoImpact 10, Serif PhotoPlus 6.0, Babaya Photoshop Professional 12 etc installed. When I removed the software folders and esp. the installer for Adobe CS2 onto my backup drive, after Win installation when I tried installing it back again it returned me an error cannot find necessary files Damn, thats a fully licensed version I haven't used as we use other software at work, like Microsoft Digital Image Suite 2006 etc. So I couldn't check out Steve's suggestion I'm afraid. But the explanation you gave Steve helped much to put everything in its place, so thanks!

Yes the selection-cropping/copying option you both mentioned is available. Evertime I chose that it gave me options for a wizard, freehand or shape in PSP 11 (as shown in the 1st attached image). Although when I looked harder, there was another toolbar at top which stated "selection type" and under it were the point to point selection options etc! Yes thats close to exact what I wanted, so thanks!

A further qs on this.. is there nothing that can select the full picture of an object in a pic automatically by clicking on it?

What about if I moved the lion face selection elsewhere, how would I cover the background to blend? I mean if I only needed the background of a pic and other objects were interference how would I correct the black gap left?

I've been to the Himalayas and I have some decent shots with a Cannon EOS 5D and a PowerShot S13 that I'd like to edit, but not before I'm good enough to try.

Tassie, the image you produced is like what I was hoping, quite right. I saw your tutorial and is was very helpful thank you as its showed me which icon designated which tool etc. Coincidence that yours was on a big cat too

Yes I've attached an image of some writing on a background (as an example). How would I get just the writing off it and replace the same area to look unedited plz?

Any help one this would be appreciated on any software but Adobe Photoshop (unless there's a miracle that can get mine working or a free version somewhere )

PS: I have looked at tutorials but I seemed to have missed this covered anywhere so I asked.

You would use either the eraser or magic wand to get rid of the writing and then use the clone brush to replicate what was underneath the writing. An image like that is very difficult because of the subtle shading behind the writing.

A few links to look over on clone, http://djewel.com/TUT_cloning.htm
combining, http://www.heffy.com/Combining1.htm
cutouts, http://www.bingoware.com/cutouts/
Removing Distractions in Photos, scroll down a bit http://www.corel.com/servlet/Satelli...=1047024353448
Tutorials by the hundred http://www.psplinks.com/content/Photo_Retouching.html

An example was one I did for my SIL of her mother. It was the only pic she had and as you can see there was a lot of writing to get off and restore the pic in general. It took hours but I didnt erase the writing in this one, I covered it over using the clone. I can pick faults in it even now but the owner couldn't see a thing wrong.
So it depends on how much time you want to spend.

This one removing the lion all together took 1 minute using a large clone brush, selecting a piece of the background then painting it over the lion.

Wow the pic of the ladies is something fascinating. It reflects a different culture and time altogether just by the look of it.. something I always wanted to see but couldn't The misperfections are apparent but only if it be zoomed into or enlarged quite a bit. At that size there's nothing obvious to the eye. :sayno:

Tassie, once again thanks. I'm reading through one of the tutorials right now and they're obviously very useful.

I've attached the image that you cloned. It has intersection lines on it, which I've circled and I don't know if you saw but they certainly weren't on your SIL's perfected pic. I tried cloning to get something of the same color as you did, but without the lines and keeping one lion head showing. It produced color that was too vague and light, and I was having problems restoring it. I've attached it here:

lion-yawning2.jpg

I don't think it'd look too misfit, but how would I go about making it blend in or have the same color after or even when cloned (as the cloned section)? I didn't do anything but used the clone tool there.

Thanks.

Yep the reason there were lines in the one I cloned was I started too far over at the edge of the pic. I should have chosen an area further away from the edge.
You did a good job on the cloning there. You need to have the clone set at 100% on density, thickness and opacity, blend mode normal. This will give you an exact copy of the background as far as colour and light goes.
You can experiment with it by having your pic open and then creating a new blank pic as well. Select the area you want to clone on the background one but actually paint it on the blank one. This way you can see the colour etc without mucking up the original. Have a play with the settings til you're happy with it then clone straight onto the background.