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Author: Lori_Greenberg, Contributing Editor
 | Step one is to lighten the background to get it back to white. To do this, open the image in your Photoshop program and press Ctrl+L which will bring up the Levels window (shown here). It might look confusing to you, but it's not.
You can fiddle with it to see what it can do but the one thing we're interested in here is the little eye dropper tool bar right above where it says "preview". Click on the one on the right. When you hover your mouse over it, it should say "Set White Point." You are going to use this to turn the background white again, and it will also adjust the other colors accordingly. After clicking it, take your arrow cursor and click it somewhere on the background of your image that should be white. Be sure not to get too close to the actual beads because you might be clicking on a shadow, which should not be white. You'll know if you do this because your image will be thrown all out of whack. If that does happen, either click the cancel box (it shows here as reset but will really be 'cancel' on your screen at this point) and start over, or press down the Alt button and the cancel box will chance to "reset". Click on this and it will go back to your original image. |
 | Here you see the image after I clicked the background to whiten it. Notice that, while it is much better, you can still see some darkness around the edges. You could leave it like this or you could follow the next steps to remove it.
Removing the Background Either type W or click on the picture of the magic wand. If you hover over it, it will say "Magic Wand Tool (W)". Make sure that the tolerance is set at 32 on your toolbar, then click on a white area of your background. You will see what is called "marching ants," or the dotted line in your image. The magic wand has automatically outlined your image and it's shadow, if there is one. We are going to delete everything except what the magic wand has selected, but we need to feather the edge first or it will not look realistic. To feather the edge, either press Alt+Ctrl+D, or on the drop down menus click "select>feather" and then set it to 3 pixels and click OK. Next, hit the delete button on your keyboard and then press Ctrl+D to deselect the tool and leave your image. |
 | Here you see the final image, after I cropped out the extra background. I wait to do the cropping until the end so that I don't cut it too close and cut out any of the shadow.
I hope that this tutorial helps you to achieve great images. While the steps might look daunting if you've never used Photoshop Elements, they're really pretty simple and as with anything, the more you use it, the easier it gets. If you have any questions, please use the "Join The Conversation" link. I'd be happy to try and help you further. |
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Lori Greenberg is a glass bead and jewelry artist that creates pieces that defy the ordinary. Always striving to be one step ahead, Lori is continually pushing her own envelope and coming up with designs geared toward other discerning jewelry designers and collectors who also desire to be set apart from the crowd. |
| Lori has been lampworking since 2002 in her studio in Cave Creek, Arizona and currently sells glass beads through her website, as well as on eBay and justbeads.com under seller ID: lorigreenberg. | |
| E-Mail: lori@beadnerd.com Web Site: http://www.lorigreenberg.com | |
