Photo-Paint's Transparent Color Selection Tool
When I removed the background from this image using Photoshop, I used the Photoshop's background eraser tool. Photo-Paint 9 has a similar tool called the transparent color selection tool which worked just as well as Photoshop's background eraser for preserving the soft, billowing edges of the vapor trails in this image. Using Photo-Paint's transparent color selection tool and the technique below, I was able to remove the background from this image in just a few minutes.
The transparent color selection tool samples a color and replaces it with transparency anywhere it appears in your image. It differs from Photoshop's background eraser in that you need only click once and the color is removed everywhere in the image. You do not need to click and drag with the tool, but you can click multiple times to remove several colors. When the transparent color selection tool is active, you can adjust the tool options from the property bar, as shown below.
The number 15 in the example is the tolerance setting and it works just like the tolerance setting in your magic wand tool. This setting controls the similarity of the color in the sampled pixels. Our image has a background that is very similar in color all over the image, so I'm using a low tolerance setting. If you find the tool is erasing too much or not enough of the background color, you'll need to adjust this setting.
Before we can use this tool, we need to convert our image from a background to an object. If you look at the object docker, you can see that our image consists only of a background. To make it an object, right click on the thumbnail icon in the object docker, and choose Create from Background. Now the docker will display the word Object 1 next to the thumbnail icon instead of Background. You can double click on the object in the docker to rename it if you'd like.
To use the transparent color selection tool, just click in the background area of your image, then click apply on the property bar. If parts of the background remain, you can click on those remaining areas, click apply, and so on, until all of the background has been removed.
Here's the image after using the transparent color selection tool.
Next, we'll create a new background for the image. To do this, click the new object button on the object docker. In the docker, drag the new object below the original one containing the jets.
I used one of Photo-Paint's preset fills to fill the object with a new background for the jets.
As you can see, there is still a bit of the background color along the edges of the vapor trail. I used the selective color adjustment command to remove the cyan color from the vapor trails. Make sure the object with the jets is selected in the object docker, then go to Image > Adjust > Selective Color. In the color spectrum area, check off cyan, then drag the adjustment slider for cyan to the left until the color is removed from the edges.
Here's the image after using selective color adjustment:
It's still a little rough around the edges, so we'll feather the edge of the object by one pixel. From the object menu, choose Feather, and enter a width of 1. The results of the 1 pixel feather are shown below.
If desired, you can use the eraser tool with a high transparency setting and a textured brush to blend the edges of the vapor trail even more. Here's my final image after some additional blending with the eraser tool.
Example 1 2
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Some images from Nova Development's Art Explosion 600,000.