[Solved] Selecting an irregular shape from a bitmap

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treelistener
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Joined: Thu Jan 05, 2017 12:21 pm

[Solved] Selecting an irregular shape from a bitmap

Post by treelistener »

I've imported a photograph from my camera to my laptop. I want to select just the person in the photo, copy it, and paste it on a new layer in Draw. i don't want any of the surrounding part of the photo to be included. How can that be done?
Last edited by Hagar Delest on Fri Jan 06, 2017 9:47 pm, edited 1 time in total.
Reason: tagged [Solved].
Open Office 4.1.3, Windows 8.1
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keme
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Re: selecting an irregular shape from a bitmap

Post by keme »

Draw is not an image editor. You can sometimes use a matching shape (covering your motive, or covering the stuff you want to mask), with Modify - Shapes - intersect or ...- Subtract respectively, to cut out a portion of an existing image. Sometimes the image then resizes after clipping, rendering it useless for your purpose. Another approach is to use your image as an object background. This is more reliable for the initial clip, but further editing gets weird at times.

The best strategy is to edit the image in a proper photo editing software. If you need a quick solution, you may get away with using the snipping tool (make it a freehand snip) on an image preview onscreen. Set preview to 1:1 zoom to avoid image deterioration.
Apache OO 4.1.12 and LibreOffice 7.5, mostly on Ms Windows 10
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Hagar Delest
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Re: selecting an irregular shape from a bitmap

Post by Hagar Delest »

Hi and welcome to the forum!

See here: Cutting an object out of its background in an imported pic. With a freeform line.

However, I were you, I would use something like The Gimp (free) that gives more powerful tools for such operation.

Please add [Solved] at the beginning of the title in your first post (top of the topic) with the edit button if your issue has been fixed.
LibreOffice 7.6.2.1 on Xubuntu 23.10 and 7.6.4.1 portable on Windows 10
treelistener
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Re: selecting an irregular shape from a bitmap

Post by treelistener »

Thanks for the suggestions. I'm going to try Gimp--it sounds like the right tool for the job. I'll report back on whether it worked.
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Hagar Delest
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Re: Selecting an irregular shape from a bitmap

Post by Hagar Delest »

Look especially at the Quick Mask mode, it's very good: How to select using Quick Mask in Gimp.
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treelistener
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Joined: Thu Jan 05, 2017 12:21 pm

Re: Selecting an irregular shape from a bitmap

Post by treelistener »

[Solved] I downloaded Gimp, and with some experimentation and tutorials I finally got it to work. Thanks to all who made suggestions.
Open Office 4.1.3, Windows 8.1
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