Changing photo backgrounds

[echogirl]

Not sure if I should post this question here or the how to boards but..

I have over 100 family portrait pics that have different backgrounds. Is there any easy way to make them have a consistent background..it can be a one color (black? grey?). I'd rather not extract each person.

Thanks in advance.

[bluelemur01]

No...sadly, there is no easy way to do that. In fact, replacing an entire background even on ONE photo and having it look natural is VERY DIFFICULT! Although there are good extraction tools in Photoshop CS4 (and earlier versions) it still takes time, skill and art to do a really good extraction, especially on hair. It's hard to extract hair properly w/out having it look weird/fake/choppy.

Instead, I'd recommend using similar digital frames or color schemes for your pages to have the photos look "matched." Or you could convert to b/w; that way the different b/g's wouldn't matter.

If someone else does have an easy way to do this, though, I'm all ears!
good luck!

[echogirl]

That's what I was afraid someone would say! Thanks Jennifer.

[hguenthe]

I was thinking along Jennifer's idea of changing them to black & white or black & white with selective coloring to have a consistent look.

[deanie]

I saw an ad for a selection plug-in in a photography magazine recently. It's hype was that even a single strand of hair could be extracted ...it was quite pricey, around $300.00 or so. For that much money, I might just do what the others suggested.

[bluelemur01]

Deanie, I saw a similar ad (maybe the same one?) in a Photoshop magazine, but didn't read it carefully & don't remember the details. But it it works on hair, it would SO so be worth $300! But ever the skeptic...I wonder how much tinkering & fine tuning you still have to do even with the filter? If you see any reviews or more info about it, please post!