How to separate people in the photo from the background

This beautiful picture by Mike Forster was on the cover of a February issue of our magazine with Valentine's theme.

I wanted to put the just married couple in the picture in front of the magazine strapline while keeping the background behind the text. This is a powerful design trick, very popular in print media.

And it can be done with just the tools available in Pages.

There are two ways to 'separate' the people in the picture from the background and put them 'in front' of the text:

- use Draw Tool from the Shapes menu in the Tool Bar to create a cutout
- use Instant Alpha to remove background

Here I used the 'cutout' method.

- First import the photo in the Pages document, resize and position it as needed.
- Then choose Draw Tool from the Shapes menu in the Tool Bar and create a shape which 'traces' the contours of figures you want to cut out from the original photo. Set object fill to none and stroke to none in Object Inspector so that you can see the photo underneath. The more dots you use the better.
- Third, after the free draw shape is finished, set it to Image Fill in the Object Inspector and choose the original photo for the Fill.
- In the Fill submenu choose Scale to fill... With luck the original photo will fit the free draw contour exactly. If not edit the shape by clicking on it twice (not double clicking - click, pause, click again). You should see little red dots. Click on them one by one to edit the shape (drag them or move with keyboard arrows) and make the photo sit tightly within the shape.
- Now, under Arrange menu, bring your cutout to front, so that it overlaps the straplines at the top of the page. Adjust the position of the cutout on the page.
- Then select the original photo and Send it to Back (Arrange menu) so that the background you had cut out from the image in front sits behind the magazine title and other text.

You may find that the original photo in the back shows bits you don't want to be seen. Resize and reposition it so that only the empty background shows. Here I had to import the original photo again to leave just the empty sky in the back. In the image below you can see parts of the two photos sitting in the back. I moved them for demonstration purposes.

- Next, create Text Boxes for other magazine straplines highlighting contents etc.

In print the seam between the three photos is practically invisible.

I also wanted to put the bare foot of the bride on top of the bottom strapline - but by then ran out of time.

The Instant Alpha method may be easier, but you must have a photo with consistent colour in the background. Otherwise the Alpha tool will be erasing elements of the image you want to keep.

Anyway, again for demonstration purposes, here is the same photo with the grey Normandy Winter sky removed with Instant Alpha and replaced with the bright blue Summer one. The Summer sky photo is behind the main photo, masked and mask resized to fit the photo dimensions.




Read more about cover design tricks in 'How to Outline Text in Pages'.

Please read these articles on I Work in Pages where other uses of Draw Tool and Instant Alpha are described:
Creating clipart and original shapes in Pages
Creating your own clipart with Instant Alpha

and about another design trick used in this magazine cover - opaque patch on the Willys Jeep:
Last minute corrections - use patchwork

Last minute corrections - use patchwork.

Last week the designer who works with me was travelling in Italy when the proof reader discovered a few typos in the page which was supplied to me as a PDF module originally created in Illustrator. (There are types of PDFs which Enfocus PitStop can't get into!) I couldn't get through to her and had to correct the typos by superimposing text boxes over the text, matching the colour, the font and filling the box with gradient colour fill to match the background (top image shows the word rendez-vous spelled the French way, correctly, image below shows the text box with corrected part of text ready to be moved into position).


The simple technique of using patches always helps when you need to make last minute minor corrections in photographs, graphic images and text. Here is how it works:

- create a Text Box (or Object), type in correct word or letter sequence, adjust font and point size to match the original, set Stroke (frame) to none (image at right);
- uncheck wrapping in the Wrap Inspector;
- under Arrange menu make sure your patch is at the front: slide down to 'Bring to front';
- resize the text box so that it doesn't clip adjacent letters or lines. If you find it difficult to resize the box by dragging box handles, try doing it through Metrics Inspector. It allows discreet millimetres - down to tenth of a millimetre;
- move the patch to cover the text which needs correcting to align with the rest of the text - with keyboard arrows first. Then, if the patch does not align exactly, use Metrics Inspector to adjust coordinates - x for horizontals and y for verticals. Keyboard arrows move objects by the typographical point, but in Metrics Inspector you can move objects by the tenth of a millimetre;
- go to Object inspector, choose colour fill or gradient fill. Using the magnifying glass (loupe) in the Crayons window of Colours Inspector match the object colour fill to the background colour. Hide layout and invisibles to check if your patch matches the background and covers the corrected text.

Patchwork technique is very flexible and could be used for improving minor problems with photos and other images. But I suggest treating this as a quick fix rather than as a standard solution.

However, looking back, I see that over the past two years I've used patching many times to enhance photos or adjust them to layout requirements. Here are two examples.

1. There was a crease in the Marmite&croissant studio photo for our launch issue cover (image on the right, before patching). I put two patches - gradient colour filled objects on both sides of the marmite jar. Matching colour fill of an object is done as follows.

- in Object Ispector choose Gradient fill;
- click on one of the colour bars and when the colour well opens (crayons) click on the magnifying glass above/left of the crayons box (keyboard shortcut to open the colour well any time: Command+Shift+C).
- The cursor turns into the magnifying glass, hover it over the colour you want to copy, as close to the patch as possible - and click.
- Gauge in which direction the colour changes and repeat the same procedure with the second colour bar.
- Rotate the gradient direction wheel in the Inspector to adjust the colour change flow (image below right shows patch in position, with rectangular patch slanted to avoid cutting into the side of the jar).

2. The February Rendezvous magazine cover photo shows a just married couple sitting on a WWII vintage Willys Jeep. White straplines went nicely over olive green jeep body, but the white army markings were a bit distracting. In between the straplines (in text boxes) and the photo I put a shape with rounded corners, filled it with olive green matching the body of the Jeep and set opacity to 75 percent. This dimmed the white of the markings and made the straplines stand out better. To align the patch with the rest of the Jeep I tilted the patch right-downwards through Metrics Inspector.















To view full images of the May 2008, February 2008 and June 2006 covers of the Rendezvous magazine go to the Rendezvous Editor's Blog here
For more ideas check these earlier articles:
Preview as a cropping device
Extracting portions of a Pages document for separate use
Sharing and teamwork in iWork/Pages

The Rendezvous magazine June 2006 and February 2008 photos are by Mike Forster, Images of Normandy