How can I totally eliminate a background from a photo of a person.

[Spokes]

I have recently done our first church newsletter. I would,however, like to
be able to incorporate more real photos of people. I cannot figure out how
to eliminate the background from the photos so I am left with just the
person. I have seen this done in other newsletters and I think it would be
nice for some of the photos to be done in the same way. Can anyone help?

 

[Chuck Davis]

I have recently done our first church newsletter. I would,however, like to
be able to incorporate more real photos of people. I cannot figure out how
to eliminate the background from the photos so I am left with just the
person. I have seen this done in other newsletters and I think it would be
nice for some of the photos to be done in the same way. Can anyone help?

You must to that in an image manipulation program such as Adobe Photoshop.

 

[Spokes]

Can you explain a little more about the Adobe Photoshop? Is that another
program that I would need to purchase, and is that compatible with the
publisher 2003?
Thanks.

 

[Chuck Davis]

Can you explain a little more about the Adobe Photoshop? Is that another
program that I would need to purchase, and is that compatible with the
publisher 2003?
Thanks.

Adobe Photoshop is relatively expensive. Google returned these free
programs: http://www.picasa.com/index.ph
http://www.hp.com/cgi-bin/united-st...pid=ex_R602_UAG_go/search-hho-google-ize-home

 

[Mary Sauer]

You can eliminate some of the background with Publisher's tools. For example, create
a circle, click fill, fill effects, picture tab and browse to your image.
PhotoShop is a pricey application, there are less expensive ones on the market.
Paint.Net is free. http://www.eecs.wsu.edu/paint.net/index.html

It is not as easy as it looks...

 

[Ed Bennett]

You can eliminate some of the background with Publisher's tools. For
example, create a circle, click fill, fill effects, picture tab and
browse to your image. PhotoShop is a pricey application, there are less
expensive ones on
the market. Paint.Net is free.
http://www.eecs.wsu.edu/paint.net/index.html
It is not as easy as it looks...

Serif PhotoPlus 6 is available for free from www.freeserifsoftware.com
I'm not sure whether v6 included the Magnetic Select tool - that is
invaluable for removing backgrounds like this.
It isn't at all easy unless the background is of a single colour, and it
isn't that easy even when it is.

 

[Gem]

You can Adobe Photoshop Elements which is relatively inexpensive compared to
other Adobe products and is fairly easy to learn and fun to play with. It has
a background erase tool (actualy 2 of them) that would work great for what
you want to do.

 

[Spokes]

Thank you, thank you, Chuck, Mary, Ed and Gem. Your information concerning
the removal of a background from a photo was invaluable. You gave me some
great information and leads. It is GREATLY appreciated!