Photoshop Question

Many of the people on this forum do an amazing job with the numismatic photography, I am often green with envy seeing the shots you get.

I can generally take a passable photo of a coin, but I run into problems when it comes to the editing process.

I am not sure if this is due to the limitations of my software (Photoshop Elements 10) or that I just can't figure out what I'm doing.

Can anyone explain how (if it is possible with Elements 10) to crop an irregular shape like an ancient coin?

Thanks in advance!

 

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Cropping is one of the most time consuming aspects of my photography. Oh, how I wish I were still buying perfectly round US coins. I use the Magic Wand selection tool in Photoshop (CS6 but it's probably comparable in Elements) and then painstakingly add/remove from the selected area until I've only selected the coin. This generally takes a few minutes per side to get accurately enough. I know others have better setups which make it easier to crop out but I haven't tried to replicate that as my volume of new coins is low enough to not make manual editing too much of a chore.

 

I just take a pic, use the pen tool and trace around the coins edges the best I can, then select, inverse, delete the background and then place on the black. Sometimes I have to clean the edges up.

I do try and use the sellers images when possible. I think coin photo taking is my least favorite part.

 

I have a thought along these lines; could someone post a good example coin for me to play with?

 

I no longer use photoshop, but on GIMP, all I have to do is use the elipse selection tool, then copy and paste on a new background.

 

Mine too.

I use Photoshop Elements 12 to post-process my coin pictures and add backgrounds, but whenever possible, I try to use the sellers' images for my coins. Spending (literally) hours trying to get the best photograph of a coin (if that's even possible) tries my patience too much.

 

Kinda where I am at.

 

See what you can do with this set.




Like Mat, I resort to very carefully painting the background pure black, with whatever size brushes are required (several sizes) and under significant enlargement. I also soften the edge of the brush a little bit to make it less harsh. Done under sufficient enlargement, it doesn't noticeably alter or obscure the true edge of the coin.

Well yeah... but it's a perfectly round coin

 

Yes, please paste that onto a new background.

 

I've tried with the wand tool but often have areas with a 1 pixel raggedy transparent rim or rim of old background. (Photoshop Elements)

 

Use the largest image, not a reduced size. There are several selection tools selectable on the left edge menu second block down. It shows four major categories including one that looks like a lasso. Right clicking on it gives three choices from plain lasso, polygonal lasso to magnetic lasso. Another of the majors allows brush or pen. Another is magic wand which is best if you have done what I always advised and shot a plain and detailess background. Which you should use depends on what you want to eliminate. Set the background color (left side bottom) to black or whatever you want as a background. Select parts of the background as best you can not to include any coin parts hitting Delete when you have selected something or everything. Again, this process will be one click if you shot correctly but 'hours' if you were too lazy to shoot an easy to remove background. When everything has been removed that needs to go, combine the obverse and reverse by cut and pasting one into the other image (having resized the canvas to accept it). Crop to tastes and you are done. Make a smaller image for use online but save it under a different name so you still have the big file in case you need to touch it up later.
http://www.pbase.com/dougsmit/coincombo
The last of these steps were covered in a slideshow I made long ago but I have no page on selection processes. Every version of Elements changed something in the layout. 15 is current, I use 13 which allows use with Windows 10. I used 10 for years and before that 6 which replaced 2 at my house. I have never seen 15 but 13 was an upgrade over 10 on selection tools.

 

I use MS digital image starter edition lol.

 

I did. I just painted it green so it would be obvious. Apparently you think it worked.

 

I think we're talking about different things

 

I played a bit with the above images. The idea is to create a sharp-enough contrast between the coin itself and the background to be able to invoke generalized tools like "bucket fill" or "select by color" but the contrast between the darker areas on the coins' edges is too little to make it easily done. You have to reduce the threshold color difference to a point where you're still making a couple dozen selections to effectively remove everything desired. Although I was able to do so it was nearly as complex as physically painting new color manually at high magnification.

I wonder if it'd be easier on a white background? Ah, well. Doubtful; it'd just invert the problems.

 

The main thing that would greatly simplify things would be what Doug said-- be a better photographer-- take more time to set it up for a uniformly black background and light the coin optimally. One of the editing problems I face is when the edges of the coin are too dark and it's difficult to discern background from coin.

As for the shooting background color, I've done them in white and find it easier to shoot on black. If I am not precise with my background painting it isn't glaringly obvious

 

You know, it occurs to me that this would lend itself to green screening, depending on how much color was reflected onto the coin by lighting. Maybe rlm's cents was onto something.

 

Worth a shot but based on my trials of different background colors, I think the color reflected onto the coin would cause problems. I've had reflected color issues when taking coin pictures while wearing a non-white shirt!

 

I use Gimp as well. The old Windows Photoshop was very time consuming, and didn't always keep its aspect ratio as in Paintbrush Stretch & Skew. I'd consider your answer best answer. GIMP. Linux is easy to maneuver through. I have problems trying to run a scanner (with Windows drivers) and I have a separate pc for WIndows XP, usually for photo editing from the scanner portion. I never had problems after photoshop, though. Just need to get used to it. Love GIMP in my Linux package though.

 

I actually tried this once with a coin on a pure-green background (cardboard), and as TIF notes above, the green reflected onto the coin's rim and I couldn't process it out of the image easily.