GIMP Plugin Registry

for a long period I tried to cut backgrounds or to extract hair / subtle details with Gimp. For different instances I found different good techniques - so complex object extraction from layers can be done right with GIMP. But the main problem remain - we need a special tool for that. Indeed complex techniques eat a ton of time. We have alpha blending in GIMP with BW model - which model is used also in photoshop - we have color extraction tool too - all we need now is "developer time" >> someone need to do a fine tuning control / controls for color extraction tool to separate a color range which will become alpha ( not to extract whe whole color from the whole colors from image ). A control for tolerance similar to Fuzzy Select Tool tolerance control will be useful too. Maybe the best thing what we can do is to make a little brainstorm to imagine this tool ( control, selectors, behaviors ..). When we will have a solid draft - we can discuss with the dev team - else noone will start to work on something based on 2,5 opinions. We can work on-line ON this "forum" for example or on other place. Someone join here ?

Yes, there is. In the lower left corner of the image window, you'll see a small dotted square. If you hover over that square, a pop-up will explain that this is the Toggle Quick Mask tool. Click on that little square and a red mask will overlay your photo. You can use the paint brush to alternately paint white or black onto this mask. Start with white. As you paint, you'll notice that white painted areas will erase the red masking to reveal the original color beneath. Those areas are the active selection. Click on that Toggle tool at lower left to remove the red and revel the dotted lines indicating your selection. Re-toggle to put back the mask and continue selecting. If you over-select, just hit 'x' to switch the brush color to black and paint those areas that you want to deselect. You can use this method in combination with the scissors select tool, and, with practice, can achieve very accurate selections. Obviously, in many situations, you'll want to work under high image magnifications, and you can vary the size of the brush tool, and you can also vary the type of brush - feathered, hard, etc. It's very flexible, and, with practice, you'll get very good results. Don't overlook the polygon tool as another option to use in combination with the quick mask and scissors tool. In combination, these are very useful tools, and you can do most anything in Gimp that can be achieved selection-wise in any other application. Good luck. Hope this was useful. Caruso