Clipping Magic

Creative

image background removal

SHOW HN2013

571points
140comments
#10of 1,739 in 2013
Top 1%of 2013 by points

How HN took it

MixedNo clear lean

40 positive, 24 neutral or asking, 15 mixed, 16 critical, out of 95 comments about the project. Thread score +0.29.

Execution: 8 for, 11 againstIdea: 9 for, 2 againstDesign: 9 for, 1 againstPerformance: 7 for, 2 against

The thread, comment by comment

Each row is a top-level comment and its replies, in HN's order. Select a cell to open that comment on HN.

positive neutral or mixed critical about another commenter or something else the maker

What HN said

What people liked

  • Fast, real-time feedback and easy to use

    From 4 comments
    • This works way better than I had expected. Very well executed!
      todd3834 on HN
    • Wow. This is so fast and so slick, and works very well. Well done!
      mpclark on HN
    • Really nice work! I tried a fairly complicated image and it worked quite well. Couple bugs: 1) Chrome on Win8 consistently gives me the Network Error dialog when trying to upload…
      wingspan on HN
    • Works great!
      tunnuz on HN
  • Better than expected results on tricky images

    From 3 comments
    • Wow. So I went looking for an image I thought it would have a hard time with: http://fileza.com/d/5h2wco/clippingmagic_test.png A pretty busy background, soft/furry edges between…
      gibybo on HN
    • Miraculous. Took me 15 seconds to remove this picture of my lovebird from a pretty busy background:…
      alainbryden on HN
    • Works much better than I expected it to, so props. Brush size could be smaller though.
      thekiwi99 on HN
  • Simple, intuitive UI

    From 3 comments
    • This is really slick. I work at a newspaper where we do a lot of cutouts and I've looked at several automatic tools to save people time, and I think this is the best I have seen…
      chc on HN
    • This is beautifully done -- great UX, truly impressive tech. My wife loves it and is using it to repurpose some shots from our wedding for e.g. Christmas cards.
      patio11 on HN
    • This is seriously great and very intuitive to use. Two small improvements : it would be great to be able to change brushes (at least size). The workaround is zoom/draw/unzoom…
      emillon on HN

Objections

  • Browser compatibility and freezing during initialization

    From 5 comments
    • I get "Your Browser Is Out Of Date... Terribly sorry, but your browser appears to be missing key feature(s) required to use this website: Data URL Support Please try the latest…
      saurik on HN
    • I've been trying to use the demo for the last... 30 minutes or so, but after I upload the image the "Initializing" progress bar in the "Booting" window always freezes around 90%.
      atgm on HN
    • I was using Chrome Version 26.0.1410.65 on Mac OS X 10.7.5. Opera 12.15 is apparently not compatible since it lacks data URLs. Safari Version 6.0 (7536.25) freezes at the same…
      atgm on HN
    • It claims my browser (Firefox 20.0.1) is out of date :(
      charonn0 on HN
    • Very cool. Stalled each time for me at the "initializing" phase when using Safari 6.0.1 (OS X 10.8.2), but worked like a charm in Chrome.
      edgely on HN
  • Fixed brush size too large and no undo

    From 3 comments
    • Thats cool, but still it needs a lot of work/features. I tried removing the background using the purse picture in the pictorial, and it wasn't as easy as it was made out to be…
      hahla on HN
    • Really neat. I was really itching to use CTRL+Z though. I screwed up the first image I tried to clip. Maybe have a walkthrough of the features when the user first uses it? I…
      stmchn on HN
    • Adding a "step-back" button (even if it was only a few states), and the ability to increase or decrease brush size would greatly enhance this. Great start though, and something…
      mcescalante on HN
  • Struggles with hair, shadows and dark areas

    From 2 comments
    • Didn't work very well for hairs http://i.imgur.com/g16qR4J.png
      est on HN
    • Interesting, but shadows, brown and blacks, tend to trip it up. Was playing with a photo of my car that is really difficult to break out because the rear bumper is pretty dark in…
      Shivetya on HN
  • Red and green markings hard for colour-blind users

    From 1 comment
    • Very cool. The red and green suck for us color blind folks, though.
      RobotCaleb on HN

Requests

  • Undo and reset functionality

    From 2 comments
    • Yeah, we need to add both undo and reset/clear. The help should have shown during the upload / init!?
      jacobn on HN
    • Undo is sorely needed. Just deployed a smaller brush size (30px instead of 40px when zoomed out). It should get picked up when you reload the page (though default asset caching…
      jacobn on HN
  • Keyboard shortcuts like Photoshop

    From 3 comments
    • I love it! A couple of quick Photoshop shortcuts would really seal the deal, like holding down Spacebar to activate the grabber tool.
      lifeformed on HN
    • Very cool! I've seen this technique before in research papers and their videos, but not as actual software. The one suggestion I would make is to follow Photoshop's shortcuts.…
      tghw on HN
    • Another vote for space-to-drag. Though, I guess us photoshoppers probably will continue to use photoshop for this sort of thing so our muscle-memory shortcuts might not be so…
      lessnonymous on HN
  • Smaller brush size

    From 2 comments
    • Pretty Awesome. Would be good if you could choose a smaller brush.
      itry on HN
    • Yeah, it should probably be a little smaller (and note what happens when you zoom in)
      jacobn on HN
  • Feathering edges and image link input

    From 2 comments
    • This is really slick. I work at a newspaper where we do a lot of cutouts and I've looked at several automatic tools to save people time, and I think this is the best I have seen…
      chc on HN
    • Would be good to be able to give an image link, and not just upload from the computer. Really sweet tool though
      Ntrails on HN

Questions

  • How it compares to GIMP foreground select

    From 2 comments
    • How does this compare to the gimp "Foreground Select tool"? http://docs.gimp.org/en/gimp-tool-foreground-select.html
      ars on HN
    • Doesn't matter. Gimp is insanely hard to use. This isn't.
      UnoriginalGuy on HN
  • What algorithms are used

    From 3 comments
    • This is kickass... is the whole thing happening in JS or server side? Any idea what algorithms are being used?
      sudhirj on HN
    • Any chance of source code, or at least a detailed post explaining the algorithms behind this?
      peter-fogg on HN
    • does it use GraphCuts?
      ank286 on HN

Alternatives named

  • GIMP Foreground Select tool

    From 2 comments
    • How does this compare to the gimp "Foreground Select tool"? http://docs.gimp.org/en/gimp-tool-foreground-select.html
      ars on HN
    • Very cool! I've seen this technique before in research papers and their videos, but not as actual software. The one suggestion I would make is to follow Photoshop's shortcuts.…
      tghw on HN
  • Photoshop Magic Wand Tool

    From 1 comment
    • This seems very similar to the "Magic Wand Tool" in Photoshop. It's nice that it's free online, but it doesn't seem to produce better results.
      brianberns on HN
  • SIOX algorithm

    From 1 comment
    • Did you use the SIOX algorithm to implement it? That's what the Gimp feature is based on: http://www.siox.org/
      cbhl on HN
  • KNN Matting and Shared Matting

    From 2 comments
    • Have a look at KNN Matting http://ihome.ust.hk/~dli/projects/knn/. Their MATLAB implementation uses a similar style to yours but is not as real time. They take single mouse…
      sjtrny on HN
    • Actually Shared Matting is far more applicable than KNN Matting. It's designed for real time use and has a post processing step which will help you deal with fine detail like…
      sjtrny on HN
  • Bonanza Background Burns

    From 1 comment
    • Also available, and newly made free: http://www.bonanza.com/background_burns Pros: Doesn't require the fg/bg coloring step needed here, just figures out your FG without…
      wbharding on HN

Category, keywords, summaries and labels on this page were made by AI (Thread Reader v2) and not checked by hand. Each point links to the comments it came from.

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