GIMP 2.10 Basics: Using the Foreground Select Tool

Рет қаралды 207,900

Күн бұрын

In this GIMP Basics tutorial, I show you an in-depth look at how to use the foreground select tool! This tool uses a process called image matting to distinguish the foreground from the background - allowing you to isolate an object with minimal work. This task is accomplish via two different algorithms - Matting Global and Matting Levin - which I will discuss in the tutorial.
This is an effective tool when trying to erase image backgrounds, cut objects out of images, or edit or make image adjustments to just the foreground or background. This is a great tool for beginners to learn!
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Пікірлер: 184

@ronlawrence5021 4 жыл бұрын

Finally! A guy who puts out a tutorial where you don't have to have a PhD in Graphics Art design to understand him! As a former Photoshop User who refuses to pay a monthly subscription....converting over to GIMP....I really appreciate this!

@guritche 5 жыл бұрын

who would have known to press Enter! finally I figure this out. Thanks!

@MathijsGroothuis 5 жыл бұрын

Yeah pretty lame UX wise.

@charlesd.6704 3 жыл бұрын

@@MathijsGroothuis I press enter on Mac and nothing happens

@mortycremwatch 2 жыл бұрын

@@charlesd.6704 I am having that problem too. Have followed the tutorial several times and it just sends me back to original image when I hit enter after Preview Mask. Can anyone help me please?

@matthewkierstead5993 Жыл бұрын

@@mortycremwatch Hey man, good name! For me, I had a pop up window of sorts with a button that said "select". When I clicked it, it snapped the line around my object.

@omongemoderno 4 жыл бұрын

One way to further improve a selection with this tool is: After selecting the object, if there are any flaws, go to "Select> To Path" and convert the selection to a vector. Now adjust the vector where the selection failed After adjusting, press enter on the keyboard and your selection will be better. It is also possible to export a vector (in the vector tab) as an SVG to use later, both to create selections and to create guides from selections I recommend that you teach this in a video.

@paridhirastogi6708 4 жыл бұрын

Love the way you explain, without rushing!!!!!! 🍁

@LukaszBrodziak 5 жыл бұрын

Great tutorial. This will greatly help with my product photos when blending two exposures. Thanks a lot Sir!

@DaviesMediaDesign 5 жыл бұрын

That's awesome - happy to hear there is a direct application for you with this tutorial. Thanks for watching!

@refdelx 4 жыл бұрын

This has helped LOADS! Great tutorial, thx so much i made something pretty good because of u and it was my first try 😀

@nzwebxpress4856 2 жыл бұрын

Thanks Michael - I appreciate the time you are taking to produce these tutorials makes using GIMP far more pleasurable , Great looking dog !

@NickLeo777 5 жыл бұрын

As always you give the best tutorials thank you so much, I approached this with different methods in the past but this is the best option for sure and it will save a lot of time

@DaviesMediaDesign 5 жыл бұрын

Thank you for the kind words! Great to hear this method was able to work for you. Thanks for watching!

@margaretlake 5 жыл бұрын

I watched two other tuts and at the end I just shook my head in frustration. I knew there had to be a better way. Thank goodness I found this. Took me a few practice tries but I've got it now. I can't control the mouse well enough for the other methods. With this, I don't have to. Thank you so much.

@DaviesMediaDesign 5 жыл бұрын

Glad you didn't give up and were able to stumble upon this video! Thanks for checking it out.

@ericaroberts3919 5 жыл бұрын

Holy crap this helped me SO MUCH!! Thank you thank you thank you!!!

@DaviesMediaDesign 5 жыл бұрын

Awesome - thanks for checking it out!

@SirLucky_13 3 жыл бұрын

Oh man, this way seems so much easier than trying to cut out the image myself. Thank you

@SevenDaysDeparted 4 жыл бұрын

Great tutorial. I've always wondered how this tool worked. Thanks DMD :)

@luciflu 5 жыл бұрын

Woooooollll! Great!!! I Love your Tutorials!!

@Dakota_B_ 4 жыл бұрын

Cool stuff. I've never used a real image editor so this is all pretty amazing how it works.

@daverobinson1396 3 жыл бұрын

Extremely helpful and well done - thanks!

@bil4x467 2 жыл бұрын

You made it so easy to follow along. It was fun!

@user-xi9fr8mh9r Жыл бұрын

thanks a lot it helped . The selection was real easy this way..

@TraneFrancks Жыл бұрын

Super! Thumbnails just became loads easier. Thank you very much.

@Pteriidae 3 жыл бұрын

Over, what, 6 years of working with Gimp every time I need to edit something and today is the day I learn about this. God damn it xD I imagine it would have made my work so much easier at times

@LEDBOO 4 жыл бұрын

Incredible tutorial. Thank you.

@GottaGetBeefy 5 жыл бұрын

WOW!!! I had no clue that that icon did. Can't wait to try this out!

@DaviesMediaDesign 5 жыл бұрын

It's an awesome tool, right? Thanks for watching!

@jackieconnell7183 5 жыл бұрын

Awesome! another great video

@AlicesonRose 5 жыл бұрын

Yayyy! Thank you so much! My photos will be edited so much faster! Thank you thank you!!

@DaviesMediaDesign 5 жыл бұрын

Awesome! Thanks for watching!

@gaaraxpo 5 жыл бұрын

I searched this the other day and now you just upload the tutorial. What a coincidence. Nice tut btw :)

@DaviesMediaDesign 5 жыл бұрын

As I've said before, I like to think I can read my subscribers' minds :p. Thanks for watching!

@jmemusic 2 жыл бұрын

Really useful tutorial. I'm using it to create a path from the selection.

@marcossaraiva4245 5 жыл бұрын

great tutorial! and great work to promote Gimp!

@DaviesMediaDesign 5 жыл бұрын

Thank you! I'm always happy to promote GIMP - it's a great program.

@arnoldvillar5123 3 жыл бұрын

thanks for teaching......all of your video's are excellent......you are a very good teacher!

@leandro_damasceno 4 жыл бұрын

Great tutorial! Thanks

@RhinoTTH 2 жыл бұрын

Insanely helpful, this will be a game changer for making thumbnails!

@CryingLeo 2 жыл бұрын

That's a very nice and kind of easy way! thank you.

@Twobarpsi Жыл бұрын

Excellent video!!

@agropoda 5 жыл бұрын

Fast & easy, thanks.

@DaviesMediaDesign 5 жыл бұрын

Great - thanks!

@malitaus5672 Жыл бұрын

Very good, thank you!

@websurfer5772 8 ай бұрын

Thanks for the tips. ⭐

@brianivandertp 4 жыл бұрын

Wow! I didn't know that! Thank you

@tinokaps 5 жыл бұрын

Thank you, good sir

@ChessGrandmaster Жыл бұрын

You make it look so simple

@ReptileWings 2 жыл бұрын

Thank you for helping me with my homework.

@loic3786 4 жыл бұрын

Each time I watch one of your videos I feel like I'm cheating by simply skipping gimp's tough learning curve, thanks 💯

@abnerbeebee 2 жыл бұрын

Excellent.

@ttt132 Жыл бұрын

thx for tutorial!

@crystel704 5 жыл бұрын

Awesome thank you

@DaviesMediaDesign 5 жыл бұрын

Thanks for watching!

@DaviesMediaDesign 3 жыл бұрын

Hey all - it appears Matting Levin doesn't work properly for me in GIMP 2.10.20 on a Windows machine. *UPDATE: this issue has been resolved with the release of GIMP 2.10.22. This new release version is currently available for Windows and Linux. Not available for MAC yet - though I'm not sure if this issue occurs on the MAC version since MAC is still on GIMP 2.10.14 (and the issue appears to have come up in GIMP 2.10.20). It also appears the tool may have actually been improved with GIMP 2.10.22 - so the selections are better/more accurate.

@hridinsbiju9023 3 жыл бұрын

Okay 👌

@krishnamsinha8320 3 жыл бұрын

Oh God I was searching a solution to this problem continuously for like a week. Thanks

@chuctanundaspiderbone5407 8 ай бұрын

Actually, I have flatpak version of 2.10.36 on Linux and it still making the vertical bars, so the bug hasn't really been fixed. There are bug reports up from earlier this year for both Windows & Linux. People are still having this problem. Nice description of how it is supposed to work though, thanks. I've always thought that this is one of Gimp's clunkier tools, even when it is working.

@logotutorial011 5 жыл бұрын

thank you

@DaviesMediaDesign 5 жыл бұрын

Thanks for watching!

@chrissherren1374 11 ай бұрын

Thank you!

@DaviesMediaDesign 11 ай бұрын

You're welcome!

@toddw6716 2 жыл бұрын

Good explanation and not too fast

@maksympletiuk5311 4 жыл бұрын

Thanks for tutorial, it very good explained. But for some reason on step selection it went wrong, it just make selection of some rectangles all over on image, but before that it did good and highlighted needed object. (Sorry for my bad English)

@amcds2867 2 жыл бұрын

Thank you.

@kimanga0014 3 жыл бұрын

Thanks a lot.

@crystalli9831 5 жыл бұрын

You said "stick with add to the current selection". I think you meant: REPLACE the current selection. 1:24

@RobertShaverOfAustin 5 жыл бұрын

Good stuff. How do I change the pixels per inch in a image without changing the size? For example if I have a web image that is 72 DPI and I want to prepare it for printing, first I want to change it to 300 DPI. Then I can see the size of the image at that resolution. Thanks.

@chunnr 4 жыл бұрын

Thanks for this tutorial. I have downloaded GIMP 2.10 just a week ago, and tried following your video on a picture I have, but my "engine" is only showing 'Matting Global' - what am I doing wrong?

@kev200869 5 жыл бұрын

as always,great vid,one question:how do i apply different colors to brushes?

@DaviesMediaDesign 5 жыл бұрын

Thanks Kevin! I am not sure what exactly you are trying to accomplish, but I believe the answer to your question is that you just change your foreground color in the Toolbox. Whatever color your foreground is set to will be the color of your brush.

@sajahb7444 4 жыл бұрын

Thank you for the very helpful and informative tutorial!!!! Thank you for the easy to understand video. Very helpful! We wrote a children’s book and hired an illustrator for the pictures in the book. We want to have 100% ownership on all copyrights involved in our Future books. We are not artist but we do take beautiful pictures. We have a lot to learn. We were thinking about converting our photographs into illustrations/cartoons and then adding layers to create a whole picture that coordinates with the literature/text in our books. We like the hide and seek type children books. There is a lot of images on these pages that one or two photos can’t illustrate. We have to add a lot of images/layers etc. We have to stay within the trim sizes of our books which is 7”x10” or 8”x10”. All images have to be in at least 300 Dpi, PDF’s have to be optimized, JPEG’s, transparent objects and layers have to be flattened in native file before publishing, if the book uses bleed then images or elements that bleed to the edges of the pages then our manuscript has to be uploaded as a PDF, PDF’s must be optimized, plus all the other fancy elements are involved. I am not sure if it’s even possible for us to do convert illustrations using Software like GIMP or others but we sure hope so. Any recommendations or places that you can guide me to for help? Thank you in advance!

@websurfer5772 8 ай бұрын

Did you ever end up working all that out?

@Ck87JF 4 жыл бұрын

This is cool, and so much better than how I've been doing this before (thanks for the link from the 90 second challenge). I'm curious though, why you have to draw outside your subject (girl/dog), and then go back and fill on top of the subject. Why not do the fill by itself and leave off the first step? Just curious about what Gimp is doing during those two steps.

@thilinaalagiyawanna3680 3 жыл бұрын

Thank youu

@fxsrider Жыл бұрын

Wow!! That is too easy!!

@Erich_U 4 жыл бұрын

Great tutorial! But I do think that when you work with large pictures for posters or large graphics, you won't get around cutting out by hand, especially when it comes to hair.

@andyyyold9638 5 жыл бұрын

7:40 deleting background with delete button doesn't seem to work for me on mac. Any ideas?

@Loony_BeLuna 5 жыл бұрын

I just used it today (before I watched your video), and... after I did uhm.. color the body and pressed enter, I still had to use the lasso(f) to complete my work, so I saw not a real reason in this feature...the lasso works much better.Hmmm that looks much faster as my way... seems like I made it wrong O_o...

@forfun1101 5 жыл бұрын

Thank u

@DaviesMediaDesign 5 жыл бұрын

Thanks for watching!

@GFAMPlayground 5 жыл бұрын

What gimps version you use in this video?

@ArturJBCosta 4 жыл бұрын

Like and Fav.

@lithiumferrate6960 2 жыл бұрын

What a cute doggo.

@josuenavarro855 4 жыл бұрын

deleting background with delete button doesn't seem to work for me on mac. can you help?

@oscarfilms9375 5 жыл бұрын

Is this the closest thing gimp has come to the magic wand select tool in PS? If not is there anything better that works just as quick?

@cosmo0080 5 жыл бұрын

hi, would one use that tool to isolate a area in order to change the color of said area?

@DaviesMediaDesign 5 жыл бұрын

Yep - you can definitely use it for that (you could use the Hue slider to change the color of the area you select).

@paulbreaux909 Жыл бұрын

Would this be the way to select lettering in an image to then erase the lettering, then fill in that space with the background? Essentially just doing away with the lettering, or anything else, and replacing it with the background.

@jankorakic1517 5 жыл бұрын

Good! Thank you. Just pelase if it is not a problem dont miss to attach pictures :-) Thanks again

@DaviesMediaDesign 5 жыл бұрын

Thanks for pointing this out! I went ahead and added the link to the photo used in this tutorial.

@colinne2224 2 жыл бұрын

I don't have the foreground select thing at the bottom left of your screen bc I accidentlly removed it and I don't have the option to put it back...

@user-qu2tq7qb3j Жыл бұрын

Great tutorial, but when it comes to deleting the background nothing happens? How exactly do I delete the background? You mentioned hitting the delete button, but that did nothing. Is there something that I'm missing??

@davidbabbitt1839 5 жыл бұрын

Is there a video how to select black text from a photo and delete the rest of the text? This tool or a different one?

@DaviesMediaDesign 5 жыл бұрын

You may want to use the Fuzzy Select tool which will allow you to select similar colors in a "contiguous" region - i.e. a specific color in one area of your image.

@RogerHolden 2 жыл бұрын

It's very hard to see the bits it's missed in the paintbrush mode - how do you get back to the paintbrush stage once you've hit enter and realise it's not right? Mine only gives me the lasso not the brush.

@hassegreiner9675 5 жыл бұрын

I have a triangular image and want to remove the background - an extremely simple operation with no fuzzy outlines or anything but how? There seem to be only advanced, superfast tutorials available out there where all the little embedded 'hit the this key and hit the that key' work all the miracles. Would PhotoShop be more intuitive for non-pros like me?

@PindDiStream 5 жыл бұрын

By ctrl+I I have now selected the background and how does i can go back to the subject

@DaviesMediaDesign 5 жыл бұрын

Hit ctrl+i again (that is the shortcut for select>invert).

@sdlcman1 10 ай бұрын

I personally have had very little luck with the FG Select tool, spending more time touching up that it would have taken to have used the Path tool.

@DaviesMediaDesign 10 ай бұрын

I recommend my latest tutorial, which uses AI + GIMP to quickly and accurately remove backgrounds (for free) kzfaq.info/get/bejne/qthdaceFtriYe2w.htmlsi=8c6Vt2Epq6s9nS9x

@sdlcman1 8 ай бұрын

@@DaviesMediaDesign I've been using the G'mic Filter "Extract Foreground" under the Contours category for years. It's far from perfect but is faster than FG select. It also requires a lot of touch up. I'm not comfortable sending photos to a third party like that. I see a lot of privacy issues.

@leesalt 5 жыл бұрын

Do you think GIMP will ever have something as powerful as the content aware fill that Adobe has or is that something proprietary that Adobe would take action to prevent competitors from using?

@nesper8 2 жыл бұрын

Resynthesizer for GIMP

@akshaykadam1175 5 жыл бұрын

fatal error : unhandled exception How do I fix this error??

@DaviesMediaDesign 5 жыл бұрын

There are a variety of things that could be causing this issue. You may want to search here, though, to see what the issue is: www.gimp.org/bugs/

@tdavisdesigns 5 жыл бұрын

I am also getting this error when using this tool. Did you figure out a fix?

@marzatomika 5 жыл бұрын

Everytime I use matting Levin it gets up to the point where I paint the background and if I got enter it freezes and eventually crashes and matting global looks like it's working but it does nothing.

@DaviesMediaDesign 5 жыл бұрын

You may want to report that to the GIMP Bug reporting page: www.gimp.org/bugs/

@joshuasherlock565 3 жыл бұрын

How do I get the view where I see all the tools and picture the way it appears here? All I have is the picture taking up the whole screen.

@DaviesMediaDesign 3 жыл бұрын

Hit the tab key

@Loony_BeLuna 5 жыл бұрын

I wish my Gimp would stop crashing if I try to rotate/scale 200-300layers :/ it can't handle this amount Q_Q Do you have any advice for that?

@websurfer5772 8 ай бұрын

Did you ever figure it out? This could be a computer memory issue. See if running GIMP makes your computer's memory crash.

@mahmoudelkheshen4615 4 жыл бұрын

how to get this white theme because I have a black theme?

@rutgers11 Жыл бұрын

Once I complete circling the image with the foreground select tool then press enter and choose the paintbrush tool, I get a message stating "computing alpha of unknown pixels and the gimp program becomes unresponsive once I've selected the paintbrush tool. After being unresponsive, the image reverts back to original image. Why am I receiving this message?

@17MrLeon 4 жыл бұрын

"Make sure we get some of the parts right here"

@DerdOn0ner 4 жыл бұрын

( ͡° ͜ʖ ͡°)

@brownrage Жыл бұрын

So, um, after I'm done selecting and getting the mask how I want it, I hit "enter" and nothing happens. Any ideas why that is?

@Bronze-td8jq 3 жыл бұрын

After I select using the Foreground Select tool, I see a bunch of dotted, vertical lines. Can you please tell me how to fix this? Thank you.

@DaviesMediaDesign 3 жыл бұрын

I would assume you are using an earlier version of GIMP as this was a common issue I believe with either 2.10.14 or 2.10.18 (I can't remember exactly which version). Update to the latest version and the problem will go away.

@hungrywolf4903 5 жыл бұрын

I lasso the main image click enter and background turns blue. i paint the main image click enter and everything turns blue. How do I stop this? Cheers

@DaviesMediaDesign 5 жыл бұрын

You may just need to switch the Draw Mode under the Foreground Select Tool "Tool Options" to "Draw Foreground" manually. Sometimes it doesn't automatically switch over from Draw Background to Draw Foreground like it should.

@janplayssims1988 3 жыл бұрын

2.8 No longer has the engine select or the switch to paint brush from selection lasso.

@CanberkSezer 4 жыл бұрын

it works so slow to calculate on my computer and I have a decent computer why do you think is that?

@elocinsel 3 жыл бұрын

I have tried these several times but with same result: the whole image gets deleted, not only the background..dunno what got wrong :(

@blablabla-ue7tx 3 жыл бұрын

Hi, its very nice tutorial but I have one question. When I hit Enter as on 7:04 I do not see selection with marching ants but its returns back to the original image and I have to repeat all steps again. I have had used your tutorial before and all worked like a charm. What can be wrong? I'm using MacOS Big Sur 11.2 and GIMP 2.10.14. I have updated GIMP to 2.10.22 but result remains the same.

@orlandoscott4417 3 жыл бұрын

Same here....Any update on this problem?

@blablabla-ue7tx 3 жыл бұрын

@@orlandoscott4417 Unfortunately no. I'm not sure but i think that the reason of such behaviour is MacOS version. Maybe some of previous MacOS versions should work as aspected but i did not try.

@benjaminkeep 3 жыл бұрын

Yep, same thing here. Using Gimp 2.10.22. I presume no progress on your end?

@blablabla-ue7tx 3 жыл бұрын

@@benjaminkeep i don't know because i didn't try it anymore

@MaverickHunterXZA 5 жыл бұрын

Either i'm a complete buffoon (completely possible) or i'm missing something here. No matter what i do, my selection always turns out incredibly shoddy and smudged. Take the neck/face part in you video. You barely contoured it, yet the algorithm selected the area perfectly on its own. No matter what image i pick (even up to 1080p resolution), even flat surfaces end up with a lot of noise, smudge etc. Even on high contrast pics (Flat colored BGs) Any internal setting i might have missed? Any known setting that might cause noise?

@DaviesMediaDesign 5 жыл бұрын

Do you have the engine set to "Matting Levin?"

@MaverickHunterXZA 5 жыл бұрын

I tried both engines. Levin is a tad more accurate, but still not very clean. But i recently updated GIMP and discovered, that some Plugins i had caused major issues. It might be, that something i installed simply broke it due to incompatibility.

@joesnickers2066 3 жыл бұрын

I just cant use this tool, I do it manually, works for me somehow always bettter.

@gabigabriel3901 4 жыл бұрын

I don't know why but when I press enter in the last step I get a selection of vertically lines...

@patrickwai7180 4 жыл бұрын

I also have the same problem when selecting matting levin' as engine. The solution is NO 'feather edge' enable.

@gabigabriel3901 4 жыл бұрын

@@patrickwai7180 Thanks maybe I will try.

@chrisg6091 5 жыл бұрын

Using Levin method, crashes with a fatal exception error. Wonderful.

@DaviesMediaDesign 5 жыл бұрын

That's no good. You can check to see if this is a common bug that occurs in GIMP or report the bug: www.gimp.org/bugs/

@chrisg6091 5 жыл бұрын

@@DaviesMediaDesign 100% reproducible so I'll file a high quality bug. Meanwhile the traditional method of creating a layer mask using brightness/contrast is 1000x faster/simpler if your background isn't too busy. Thanks for the beautifully presented vid. Cheers.

@gabigabriel3901 4 жыл бұрын

@@chrisg6091 Hi. How is the method of creating a layer maks using brightness and contrast? I cannot find a video about it.