[Alex Ross]

I am finding this too hard, I googled and found some companies that do this sort of thing, has anyone tried them? Is clipping path the same as deepetching. www.deepetch.com seems to be one good one, I also saw www.lazymask.com and www.digital-media-tech.com. Has anyone had any experience with this sort of thing. My catalog has over 300 images of jewelery and jackets with fur fitted on manequins due in two weeks, all shot on a blue studio background. Do I require alpha channel masking? Can anyone help please?

[Thorzdad]

"Deepetch" is just a trade name. They appear to be doing the same thing as the other two.

Alpha-channel masking provides a more natural, soft-edged mask. As opposed to the hard-edged mask you would get in things like transparent gifs. Alpha channel masking is the preferred way to go, imho.

I'm not aware of anyone who has used these services. They appear to be, essentially, offices full of people hand-drawing masks. It's all offshore...Philippines, Thailand. Deepetch looks to be Australia-based, but I'm willing to bet they have their actual workforce located in Asia somewhere.

It would appear that these services are set-up to handle exactly your need.

[hmccorkle]

Here are the 3 month avg rankings for these sites (according to Alexa):

deepetch.com - 3,223,474
lazymask.com - 534,063
digital-media-tech.com - 1,326,220

When I can't choose with online service to use, and really have no other important information about the company, I consider price, then search ranking. In this case, I would be more likely to go with lazymask.com, since it appears they receive more traffic than the others.

Best of luck.