blurry selection!

[gail spiro]

Can anyone help? I'm having a horrible time w elements 6: Sometimes when I make a selection, the edges of the selected image are very blurry regardless of any modifications I try such as feathering, smoothing, etc. I'm trying to select a child who is against a white background, so I can insert her image in a different background, but the selection is too blurry! The photo, by the way, is perfectly sharp.
Thanks!
GS

[Chuck Engels]

What size it the image, in pixels and resolution?
Are you using the Magic Wand to select or something else?
Tell us a little more detail about what you are doing please

And screen shots of what's happening are always good too

[gail spiro]

Hi chuck-
Thanks so much for the quick reply! The image is 300 DPI: 3872x2592- a portrait taken w my Nikon D80. The selection was done with a combination of selection brush and magic selection brush. I went back and forth MANY times trying various modifications, and every time I hit control J and looked at my selected image without the background, the edges were blurry and blended in with the transparent layer. I'm experimenting with buying some digital photo backgrounds, and I need to be able to make selections without this problem!
Thanks. If this info doesn't help, I'll try showing you some examples, but I'll have to recreate it because I was frustrated tha I quit the photoshop program w/out saving!

[gail spiro]

oops chuck- meant to say quick selection tool, not magic selection tool.

[Chuck Engels]

I'm sure that Barb, Steve, or one of the other Photoshop folks will be able to help you. It sounds like the selection tool has a gradient or feathered setting or something like that. Can you check the options for the tool and verify that it is not adding a gradient or feather to the selection?

[Steve Grisetti]

It does sound like you're describing feathering -- but I'm sure Gail would know where to look to ensure that wasn't happening.

So maybe it's the word 'blurry' that's throwing us. Gail, can you describe what you mean by blurry or, better yet, attached a JPEG of a section so we can have a look at it?

[gail spiro]

well- as I said, I didn't save because I was so frustrated that I closed my program in a hurry. When I went back to recreate the problem, it wasn't happening this time, but it has happened several other times in the past. This time, I'm confronted with yet another selection problem, which is a thin "ghosting" lline around the image, that is very visable when I paste it onto another background. ugh!
And believe me when I say that I wasn't inadvertantly using feathering or any other similar settings, as a matter of fact, I fiddled with it so many times, and at one point had the feathering to zero!
I'm getting plenty frustrated with what should be a simple situation!

[Bob]

Gail,

One thing to watch for when using any of the brush tools is the softness of the brush. This is separate from any feather amount that you may apply, but would result in a similar look. I use Photoshop rather than Photoshop Elements, so I can't be precise. But, check the tool options bar, there probably is a brush properties item. Under that, there should be a hardness setting. Zero is a very soft feathered brush while 100% is a hard edged brush with no feathering.

As for the line around the image, that is very common when cutting out a selection. That's called a fringe or matte and what you want to do to remove it is called defringing and Elements does have some defringing capabilities, check your help file. Generally, you want to make the selection as close a possible to the cutout item to minimize the fringe (you may be able to contract the selection to make it smaller), and then, after cutting the selected item out to its own layer, use the defringe or matting options (if elements has them) to help eliminate the fringe. If all else fails, you can even erase around the edge.

[Steve Grisetti]

And again, Gail, a picture is worth a thousand words. If you can post even a representative segment of your photo it might help us figure out what's going on.

BTW, is this photo you're clipping a JPEG? If so, do a Save As but, before you save it, note the compression setting.

JPEGs average pixel data and, particularly if this photo is highly compressed, you may not have a clean edge to trim.

[John 'twosheds' McDonald]

oops chuck- meant to say quick selection tool, not magic selection tool.

Does PE have the pen tool? Normally folk are wary of using this for selections but it is easy to use. Links to a couple of tutotrials on its use here:-

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=IDrtyNmp3A4
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=AGVsn-X2 ... re=related