Hello people. I'm trying to pull this ship out of a rather large image. I already know about the layer mask technique (that's what I've used so far), but I'm wondering, is there a faster way to get rid of the green colouring the background, or do I just have to bite the bullet and continue with the masking? I only ask because masking the green in between the ropes is *really* time consuming. Any advice is appreciated. PS: Oh yeah, and I just cut a small portion of the image out so people would have a better idea of what I'm talking about.

i got no idea how u are working that with layers-but i only did photoshop for 2 months though gotta admit to that. When i needa extract something i use magic wand-magic eraser and ordinary eraser-it doesnt take long i think-if the magicwand cant be set to do it properly then i use the magic eraser and do the rest by hand. If its of any use to you you can while using the ordinary eraser hold shift down then it regenerates the original pic if u got lost in the history...

You can also use the "polygon lasso" and "click" at various points in the image (green areas) and delete them, or do it in the mask and fill with black (masking).

using the lasso is perfect for relativly straight areas like rope just zoom in.

:)
retrocity

Thanks for the advice guys. I've already tried the Magic Wand technique and it isn't very reliable. The Magic Wand will sometime grab parts of the image I don't want it to, even with the tolerance set relatively low.

And yeah, I've been using the Polygon Lasso to mask the large parts of the ropes. Unfortunately, it doesn't seem to be worth the time to use it in the small hole section.

Thanks anyways though. :)

... though magic wand is great. It just needs some practise in tolerance adjusting. And have You tried selecting the ropes (to cut and paste them afterwards), not the green background? digitally Yours, -Anthony Pontigary.

Another way is to go to use clolor range. select>color range Use the eye droppers to add and subtract to your section. Select the green and unselect anything else.

i've found that the magic wand is almost completly useless except in cartoones, but the thing i'd try doing is the magnetic lasso along with the polygon lasso.