Hey all, Lately, I have been working on photographing some of my coins, but I am struggling with editing out the background of the photos in order to orient them like PCGS trueview pics. What apps do you guys use to get rid of the background? I have tried using adobe photoshop mix, but it does not consistently edit the background out. Thanks
I use a couple of programs: Corel PaintShop Pro 2020 (64bit) and Serif DrawPlus X8, though I don't believe the latter is on the market anymore. With these I can easily remove parts of, or the complete background (and if it is of basically one color, it can be done with literally one touch). I can also crop, move, do variable rotations down to .1 degree, and reposition each coin to anyplace on the canvas. Of course I can also apply a wide variety of photo enhancements. I can also resize individual objects or the whole photo. However, if I really want to "fine tune" a resize, which might include changing the resolution and/or level of detail, etc. I use a separate program, PhotoZoom Pro 8. Hope that helps.
I use PhotoScape X for Windows 10 and it is very versatile, pretty intuitive, and the free version costs - $0. The Pro version costs $39.95 but you don't need it and if you decide you do, it's really easy to upgrade. Anyway, download the free PhotoScape X (or one of the other Photoscapes for other Windows and MAC applications), and play with it. Once you can navigate, take your coin photograph and drag it into the EDITOR box. Then select the CROP button, CIRCULAR button, select the color of the background you want, and drag the handles to encircle the coin. Hit the APPLY button and then save it. Do the same with the photo of the other side of the coin. Then select the COMBINE box. Select one of the VERTICAL, HORIZONTAL, or TILED buttons. Drag the cropped obverse into the box. Then drag the cropped reverse into the box. Now you have the two photos side-by-side or top-to-bottom. Save this new file then go back to the EDITOR box. Drag your combined photo into the EDITOR box and now you can add text of your own into this entity or you can copy and paste a photo or object of the slab label (I use the SNAGIT program to make an object copy of the label but you have to buy SNAGIT). See below for what this looks like when complete. This combines both a copy/paste of the slab label and custom text of the die marriage and rarity. One thing I haven't been able to figure out is how cause the corners of the slab label to hide behind the coin where they would overlap so I have to make the label size small enough to fit the gap which makes it harder to read. If anyone using PhotoScape X knows how to do this, I would appreciate a tutorial.
Thanks guys! I have started playing around with it, and it's great. Now I'll have to start keeping a catalog of my coins with photographs
@dwhiz @Publius2 @CommemHalfScrub I've been using Gimp, but I just downloaded and tried Photoscape X and I am a convert! Love it. Thanks for the tip and thanks for the thread OP! My first attempt at using Photoscape X...
Great job. I'm happy it's working for you. Now, take a look at my question at the end of my post. How do we take the slab tag and "send it to the back" so that it's bottom corners are hidden behind the coins? I've seen it done on thousands of other posted photos but I cannot figure out how to do it with PhotoScape X. If the coins were "objects" like the slab tag, then the "how" of it is easy but the coins are photos, not objects.
This is my preference. I like to crop the obverse and reverse along with the full obverse of the slab and combine them.
I was trying to work on this, but could not even find out how to add the label to the combined pics in photoscape, and found it is easier to add in photoshop x on my phone. Unfortunately, it doesn't let me put the label behind either. If anyone knows how to do this, id love to know.
I do everything in a round-about way, but it works for me. I crop the image of the obverse and the reverse and I make a slide with them in powerpoint. I use powerpoint's "remove background" feature and then I save it as a .jpeg file. I then crop the .jpeg file to have a pleasant margin around the coin. Here's one I photographed and processed in this way just tonight:
I have always used PowerPoint to create side by side images, which works okay for pictures that taken on my iPhone, as well as my newish DSLR setup. Here are the results from both. iPhone: DSLR:
I do the same. I don’t like photo editing my coin photos in any way because it feels like I’m photoshopping and making them look better than what they are.
