Outline appearing around objects when separating into layers

[Stephen Oliver]

I'm trying to enhance photos of a human figure against a background by separating the image into layers and applying different colour and shading effects. Nearly always I end up with a grey or lighter skin tone outline around the foreground image.

How can I avoid this? I have tried to refine the selection and overlap/underlap the background but this doesn't work. It seems that Pixelmatgor doesn't apply effects all the way to the foreground image layer.

Probably finger trouble - if someone can point me to a tutorial or feature that can clean this up I'd be grateful.

Thanks

[Andrius]

My first suggestion would be to soften the edges of the selection before cutting/copying the selected areas. To do that, make your selection, then choose Refine Selection and set the Edge Softness to something like 15%/20%. If that doesn't help, it'd be great if you could share a screenshot of your result, that might help me think of any more suggestions.

[Stephen Oliver]

Hi Andrius

This is the original


This is the result


Horrible!

I softened the foreground edges and rounded. I also inverted the selection and expanded and cut the selection on the background (although this makes no difference).

[Andrius]

In this case, I'd also try setting the Expand to -1% or -2% — I think that should help a lot. Here's what I'd do:

1. Make the selection
2. Choose Refine Selection
3. Set Edge Softness to 15%
4. Set Expand to -1% (or maybe -2%)
5. Choose Edit > Copy and Edit > Paste

[Stephen Oliver]

In this case, I'd also try setting the Expand to -1% or -2% — I think that should help a lot. Here's what I'd do:

1. Make the selection
2. Choose Refine Selection
3. Set Edge Softness to 15%
4. Set Expand to -1% (or maybe -2%)
5. Choose Edit > Copy and Edit > Paste

Thanks. Copy and paste in situ? Or cut and paste into a new layer?

[Andrius]

On a new layer, yep.

[Stephen Oliver]

It's still happening. Sorry, but I'm really not impressed by the way Pixelmator does this. Accepted - the images may not be high enough resolution to start with, but the artefacts that it creates from iPhone images (especially when exporting to JPEG) make the images unusable. Not remotely up to Photoshop quality. I may end up uninstalling Pixelmator Pro.