Cleaning Images

Above is the thumbnail of the image I'm working from. Karl Bang is one of my favorite artists. You may use your own image, or click here to have this full sized image (468x470 - 98kb) open in a new window. Right-click | Copy and Paste as New Image into PSP (shortcut key: ctrl+v) or you can use your own image too.

Many experienced PSP'ers save the new image right away as a new name so that while they're working on it, they can just press Ctrl+s to save it if they're happy with their results so far (we all know all graphics programs use large amounts of memory, so they crash a lot...save often.

Layers are necessary to clean up images properly (ok it 'could' be done on the background layer, but you wouldn't have near the control that you would if you used layers). Layers only work for images that contain 16mil colors (even if you can only 'see' 2 colors, for layers to be able to work, you have to turn the colors up to 16mil).

I have the 16mil icon configured into my toolbar it's so important, but if it's not configured into yours (yet), you can do it by Colors | Increase Color Depth | 16 Million Colors (24 bit) as shown below:

If you have opened an existing image (as opposed to one you've started from scratch), the first layer in the Layer Palette will be called Background by default. You are not allowed any transparency on Background. Therefore you must convert the Background to a Layer. There are numerous ways to do this; the easiest way is to double-click on the Background in the Layer Palette. A new box will appear, allowing you to name your layer. You may name it if you wish (I don't at this point, but if the image gets complex with many layers later on, I'll rename it), if you don't care about naming it at this time, click OK or just hit the enter key on your keyboard.

Ok, we've opened, duplicated, renamed, saved, increased to 16mil, and changed Background to a layer. Finally we're ready to begin.

Eraser Tool is a red upside down pencil with a white eraser, click it. In your Tool Options box, use these settings if you're using my sample image (if you're using your own image, the size of the eraser will vary but the other settings are fine). Before you start erasing, please click on the 2nd tab in the Tool Options box for Eraser and place a checkmark in the area for Show Brush Outlines. Now you will see exactly how big your brush is. Use that for all your painting tools and never change it and you'll be much happier *S*

Begin erasing, I would advise to do small sections and then release your mouse button and begin another small section. The reason is if you mess up and erase out part of the image you want, then you've lost all your other erasing. If you use the small sections trick, then you'll only have to go back a small amount. If you do erase out part of your image (and believe me you will, always LOL) do the shortcut Ctrl+z to go back one step (you can do quite a few Ctrl+z's if necessary BTW).

Try to get your image looking similiar to mine below (even if you're using your own image, try to get in close as possible with the larger brush.

Now we'll need to zoom in so we can get in closer to our edges. The Magnifying Glass Tool allows you to left click to enlarge your image by one zoom, you may click up to 20 times for a 20:1 ratio (don't do it because that's too zoomed to tell what's what). Click twice for this image. (*hint for trackball mouse, just roll the trackball scroll thingee up to enlarge and down to reduce zoom, it does not increase 'actual' image size, only zoom). (Note: how to zoom the other way: right click with your Magnifying Glass or scroll downwards with your trackball.)

Change your Eraser settings as shown below if you're using this image (only changing the size IF needed if you're using a different image).

The only thing I've changed other than the size of the brush is the hardness. A hardness of 100% is good for cleaning large outter portions of the image's background, but see all the jaggies? Changing the hardness of your brush to 0% will leave a pretty feathered look when we're right up against what we want to clean up. Why even bother with the 100% setting at first? Because it leaves half transparencies all over the place and will take even longer to get rid of the partial transparencies the 0% setting leaves behind.

Please refer to the image above to see how the 0% setting feathers up against the tiger cub. You will have to do this a few times to get the feel of using a hardness of 0% up against images. Sweep your mouse back and forth, getting closer and closer as needed, till it looks good. If you're thinking you need to zoom once more and make your brush smaller, you're doing excellent!

How does that look? Much better, Huh?

No No No! ROFL

Please, PLEASE tell me you wouldn't put this on a webpage or make a print of it! Ok whew, had me worried.

I added a new layer under the tiger cub with the black and white areas to show you we're not done. You will need to add a new layer under your partially cleaned image of whatever the background is going to be OR at least put a temporary contrasting layer under it if you plan on making a tube of your image so you can see where to spend even more time cleaning. We will do both variations.

Click on the first white icon in the upper left of the Layer Palette as shown below:

I name this layer bg... NOT background (remember if it has that name you can't have transparency? Well you also can't move background up and down in the Layer Palette, it has to be a "LAYER". So never name a layer background [unless you actually want to for whatever reasons] AND PSP does not care about upper and lower case; background=Background).

Now you'll have to place this layer under the image layer. I drag it under with my cursor. Left click on the new bg layer, and while holding down the mouse, pull it down to the bottom (it WILL work, but it takes practice. I still have to redo it sometimes since it's fickle. But it's less time consuming than clicking all over the top menu. There is also an icon you can configure into your toolbar; since I always drag, I didn't put the icon into my toolbar). If your cursor changes into a hand, GREAT!

Now we have two layers. If you haven't worked with layers yet (or not that much), you will have to pay extra attention to what layer you're on. If you don't have specialized colors set up in your Windows, or a theme installed, then your default color of the active layer will be dark blue.

In the screenshot above, the bg layer is the active layer since my Windows colors are on default. The next step is going to be the Flood Fill tool, if you had the wrong layer active (highlighted) then you would cover up your tiger cub (or your image). Just left click on any layer you want to be active.

Flood Fill with whatever background color you'll be using (or guess a close color). I am using black for the webpage example. Which with this particular image, will not require that much more cleaning (YEA!)

Activate your image layer (mine is tiger cub). With your Magic Wand Tool set as below, click outside of the image. You want the marching ants (selections are often called marching ants; they are the dotted lines) to be on the inside of your image. So you *may* have to change your feather amount, even if you are using my image. It depends on your initial clean job. This will prevent us from going too far into the tiger cub (or your image).

Now click on your Eraser Tool again and spot clean where you think it needs it. Change the size of your eraser brush as needed, and zoom as needed.

If your feather selection won't let you get in where you need to clean, expand your selection by 1 or 2. I have all my selection icons configured into my toolbar; you can use Selections | Modify | Expand from the menu until you decide the selection tools are important enough to configure into your toolbars too. You may also change the shape of your brush to right or left slant from the shapes pulldown in the Tool Options box.

After some spot cleaning, view your image at normal size to see if it looks better. With this tiger club against a black layer, he looks pretty good, but if/when you work on a different image and find that the combination of feather selections and eraser brushes set to 0% hardness leave white/grey glows, you'll want to use your retouch tool.

The Retouch Tool has soo many awesome qualities. I use Darken RGB, Lighten RGB and sometimes Soften from the Retouch Tool when I clean images. We're going to use the Darken RGB for now. I do hope you've kept your selection, if not, Ctrl+z to get it back.

Here are the approximate settings for Retouch's Darken RGB:

Wow I've never used such a high opacity setting before; generally I'll have to go as low as 5-25. Keep that in mind if you need to darken something just a little bit, and don't use the super high setting of 49 LOL. I sometimes turn off the selection when they won't let me in creviced areas. Lots of times I don't use them at all; they're a safety net for you. They prevent you from going into your good image too far as well as adding the extra feathering effect. If you find yourself in a real tight spot, you may wish to change your brush shape to Right Slash or Left Slash from the Shapes pulldown menu that's in all the paint tools.

When it's looking good, and you wish to use it on a webpage, right-click an any layer in the Layer Palette and choose Merge | Merge All (Flatten).

Save as a JPG, only if you are finished with your image. If you're not finished with it yet, save it as a PSP file. If you repeatedly open, save, re-open, save a jpg, it compresses down each time. It eventually looks dreadful (higher compression settings will look bad that much quicker).

If you're pleased with it, save it now as a JPG. Always save as a jpg UNLESS the image HAS to have transparency on a webpage, or is animated. If an image has lots of different colors, including variations of the exact same color, if saved as a gif, it would be a very, VERY large file size, taking forever to download. Gifs also mess up colors; jpg's handle colors better and compress them much better.

A recommended jpg compression setting for the web is usually between 10 and 25; it depends on many things. Vibrant colors can't compress very much and still look good. Header images are usually compressed less than the other page images. Later on I'll try to find a good tutorial on the compression settings of jpgs, and gifs; it's another whole tutorial.

If you have any problems following my tutorial, please copy shreela@direcwayNOSPAM.com into your email program; removing the NOSPAM. Please mail jpgs, gifs, or zips, that are under 50kb; no psp files thank you.