White Background #1

There are many ways to get a white background on your product photo. Some are easy, some not so easy. Sometimes, you need to do the not so easy edit to get the look you need.

Here are two images I edited for nstylemom.com. I want to tell you about how I got the look in these two images.

The first one, a wipe case.

Before:

After:

This is how I got this look:

• Select the lasso tool, and choose point to point selection. Have the feather & smoothing set to zero.
• Click around your object carefully. Once you have gotten all the way around, and you join up at your start, double click. Then you will get "marching ants" around your object. Hit Ctrl+X, and that removes your selection. Then hit Ctrl+V, and that pastes the selection as a new image.
  
• Select Image->Canvas size. Then size your canvas square by making the lengths a bit larger than the current length. (Make sure aspect ratio is unchecked.) Now you have a square image.
  
• Next, go to Layers ->Merge. Now your background is white, and your image is square.
• Now you can adjust your brightness, contrast, saturation, etc, until you get the look you want. Next, resize it for the web by resizing to at most 500X500.

When I first started editing product pictures, I cropped, but paid no mind to the measurements. But I have learned that most shopping carts will look MUCH better if your image is a square.

Okay, next image is of a chenille pillow. Before:


After:

This requires some more manipulation. When I click around the pillow, there is no way I have time to outline each little chenille tuft. So, I don't.

I quickly outline with the lasso. I follow all the steps mentioned above. And then, to get the chenille looking fluffy again, I use the Smudge tool. I grab the edge, and pull it outward, creating tufts of chenille :-)

~Kirsten