Blueangels Extractions

[blueangel06661]

Up until recently I haven't done extractions. Really I've only done 3. I've extracted a few things for sigs before but it's typically only specific areas I need.

Well here are my first 2.. The Gumi one being the 2nd one and Rin being the 3rd I've ever fully done.

UPDATED!!!
The third one is the one I spent nearly 9-10 hours on. I used the pentool for it. The 4th and 5th were more practice.

[Immoral]

They're a bit choppy to be honest, but should work for making signatures. What tool did you use to cut them?

[blueangel06661]

They're a bit choppy to be honest, but should work for making signatures. What tool did you use to cut them?

Where on the first one is choppy? Mind pointing it out?? I used a combination of lasso, wand, and quick select.

[Immoral]

Around her hand/wrist and neck. I'm not sure if you used an outer glow on it or just didn't finish the hair and there is a deep cut on her sleeve near the elbow.

Also I would recommend that you use the polygonal lasso. A lot of people use the pen tool as well. The wand and quick select tools will pretty much always leave a rougher edge.

[blueangel06661]

Around her hand/wrist and neck. I'm not sure if you used an outer glow on it or just didn't finish the hair and there is a deep cut on her sleeve near the elbow.

As for the wrist/neck, no no outer glow, that's just the way the stock is. If you want you can look at how the elbow is colored being a mile away from any edge, to give you an idea. That's still part of her shirt/and or outline. Though I do see the cut near the elbow.

Also I would recommend that you use the polygonal lasso. A lot of people use the pen tool as well. The wand and quick select tools will pretty much always leave a rougher edge.

True, but I managed to this one entirely with the wand and quick select, I wouldn't say it's rough, except for that cut.. Which really isn't noticeable.. ^_^

edit--- AHA!!

You're right about the hair!!! I was looking at the wrong thing!!! I totally see what you mean now!!! Though these are my second and third ones, I'll try to be even more careful ^_^ I totally missed those, so much it took me this long to see it.

[Immoral]

Practice makes perfect. I look forward to your next cut. ^_^

[.:neuko:.]

In the first place, it'd really help if you provided links to the original stocks; bizarrely, many extractors don't do this, and this can lead to misjudgement when it comes to critique. I could say "this" or "that" part is too choppy for example, but for all I know, the stock image may already be like that. That's having said, I cannot excuse the use of poor quality stock images in the first place (just saying). In your case however I can only take your extractions at face value.

In order to critique as fairly as possible I first download and then review all extractions in IrfanView, a free and useful image viewer that's very fast and allows the user to quickly switch background colours behind existing transparent images. In the case of extractions this is ideal for spotting undesirable artefacts, especially those which refer to as "Mr. Fringe" and "Mr. Clippy". I map all reviewed extractions to white, black and greyish-coloured backgrounds so that no potential blemish goes unnoticed.

First Extraction (Rin):

This extraction exhibits aliasing issues around the edges and this is inconsistent with the overall smoothness of the image; this blemish is most perceptible over dark backgrounds. There's also noticeable fringing around the acute angles of the subject's boundaries, especially around the hair strands. This indicates the swapping and using of multiple tools under different settings, hence the lack of overall consistency. In practical terms this extraction would be of limited use: for example, if a person were to use it for a wallpaper he/she would be forced to either downsample or fix the image in order to match the consistency and quality of the stock selected for the background.

Second Extraction (Gumi):

This extraction exhibits pretty much the same artefacts as the one above although to be fair they are less noticeable. Depending on the visual characteristics of the underlying image, the artefacts may be moderately to barely perceptible; as a result this extraction is unreliable since getting it to seamlessly blend with another image is matter of trial and error. Overall though, the trimming is much smoother than the first extraction.


It's kinda pointless to critique without proposing solutions, which is why I'm preparred to offer any tips on request. I've also taken into account that you may already know what I've pointed out. I will say this though: Since you're now making extractions for a (creative) community, you really need to start considering their needs more carefully, and thus far your extractions have shown a deficeit of this.

Before I even consider uploading an extraction, I first put myself in my target community's shoes and apply the following questions to each:

"Is the extraction consistent; i.e. are the egdes uniformly smooth?"

"Is the quality of the extraction such that the end user would not be unreasonably required to fix or downsample it?"

"Is the extraction faithful to the source stock image?"

"Overall, does the extraction reasonably answer the expectations and interests of the target community?"

As a minimum, and prior to uploading I'd ensure that all my extractions positively answer those questions, because at the end of the day the target community doesn't care about my level of experience or my creative background, only whether my extractions can answer their interests or not.

[.Tatty.]

I opted for show and not tell using a solid black background test I use on my extractions after the initial cut.

 

[blueangel06661]

I opted for show and not tell using a solid black background test I use on my extractions after the initial cut.

 

The line widths near the bow do not match because that's how the stock was drawn, can't do anything about that, Don't worry I thought it was me too. But yeah, you are correct about everything else.

Added 3 more extractions ^_^

[.:neuko:.]

The line widths near the bow do not match because that's how the stock was drawn, can't do anything about that, Don't worry I thought it was me too.

Which just reinforces my point about providing links to original stocks in the first place. I really don't understand how you can spend 9-10 hours on an extraction yet not invest in less than a minute to provide a useful link. It's pointless to say "that's how the stock was drawn" when there's an option to avoid the need for such a defense.


Anyway I'll move on to critiquing the Inaba extraction (since you said that the 4th and 5th extractions were practice): the use of the Pen tool shows an immediate and positive difference in quality over your other extractions: practically the fringing is non-existant here, and because of the selected tool, the outlines are uniformly smooth, making the extraction much more versatile than the first 2 efforts. It's not without some blemishes mind, but overall these are minor and the standard overall approaches a level that could be considered competative.

The Pen tool is certainly a great trimming tool but is not without drawbacks; that's to say it should be considered more as a necessary step than a complete solution. One enevitability with using this tool to remove every scrap of background is clipping, hence fact that the exterior outlines around your subject, although smooth appear thinner than the interior ones. This is more problematic when the outlines are fine to begin with, and this extraction is one such case in point. There are many ways around this, and depending on how faithful you want your outlines to be, some workarounds will take longer than others. Feel free to consult me if you'd be interested in restoring clipped outlines from your extractions after trimming with the Pen tool.

Overall this extraction's a very good job, and more importantly, one that better reflects the interests of the community.

[blueangel06661]

@Scruffy

[blueangel06661]

Say hello to my latest extraction. I've been working on her for a few months...

Magical Girl Miku