Photoshop tutorial 9

Advanced Extractions

STEP 1: Open your image

File --> Open (Ctrl-O) Open the image you will be using for the foreground (extraction image).

STEP 2: Duplicate your background

Duplicate your background by dragging the ‘Background’ layer (in the layers palette) to the ‘Create new layer’ icon at the bottom of the ‘layers palette’.

Open the image (Ctrl-O) that you will be using as your new background.

With the new background image active, Select the ‘Move tool’ (V) from your tools palette. Shift drag background image onto the foreground image. Holding down ‘Shift’ will center the image for you.

In the ‘layers’ palette, drag your new ‘Layer 1’ below the ‘Background copy’ layer.

STEP 3: Create a Pen Path

Using your ‘Pen’ tool (P), create a ‘Pen Path’ (make sure you have ‘Paths’ selected in the options bar). I know. Pen Path (?) you ask. You will need to know how to create a Pen Path. I can’t help you here. Maybe someday I will have a good enough understanding of the Pen tool to create a tutorial for you.

What we are trying to do with the Pen tool is create a nice refined path around the hard edges. With the ‘background copy’ layer active start your path on the left arm (her right) and work your way around. Don’t worry about the hair yet. Just stay well inside the hair, and we will take care of the rest with the ‘Extract’ filter. Work your way around, and down the right arm (her left). Then make an anchor point out side the image. Continue your path around the outside of the image, making a path around the background, NOT the subject. When you get to the last anchor point, a small circle will appear next the first anchor point. This will ‘close’ your path and create a new “Work Path” in the ‘Paths’ palette.

STEP 4: Create Alpha Channel

With ‘Work path’ active in the ‘Paths’ palette and ‘Background copy’ active in the ‘Layers’ palette, open up your ‘Channels’ palette (Window --> Channels). Click on the ‘Create new channel’ button at the bottom of the ‘Channels’ palette. This will create a new ‘Alpha channel’. Hit Ctrl-I to invert our alpha channel to white.

We need to turn our path into a ‘Stroked’ path. Select the ‘Brush tool’ (B) from the tools palette. In the ‘options’ bar, set the size to 4 pixels and the hardness to 95%. Make sure that black is set for the foreground color (“D” then “X”) and hit Enter. Go back to the ‘Paths’ palette and click off of the ‘work path’ to un-select the path (it should no longer be highlighted).

STEP 5: Extract

With the ‘Background copy’ active in the ‘Layers’ palette go to Filter --> Extract (Ctrl-Alt-X). This will bring up our ‘Extract’ dialog box.

Choose the ‘Alpha 1’ “Channel” from the ‘Extraction’ menu. This will load our stroked path.

Select the ‘Edge highlighter tool’ (B) and paint in the hair.

Make sure you paint in all the hair. Don’t leave any gaps, except for areas you will not want extracted. Try to use the smallest brush you can to keep the edges tight. Once your done select the ‘Fill tool’ (G) and click inside your selection. This should fill the area blue. Now click ‘Preview’. Here you can use the ‘Clean up tool’ (C) and the ‘Edge touch up tool’ (T) to touch up the extraction. The ‘Edge touch up tool’ does a good job of cleaning up rough edges, while the ‘Clean up tool’, together with the Alt key, can be used to add and subtract from the image. We don’t need to get too carried away here because we will only be using our extraction to create a mask. When you’re done, hit OK.

STEP 6: Create a Mask

This doesn’t look bad, but we want it better. What we want to do is make a mask. We will use this extraction as a base. Once we have a mask we can refine our edges in a non-destructive manner.

With the ‘Background copy’ layer active in the ‘layers’ palette, Ctrl-click on the Thumbnail. This will make a selection from our extraction.

Now duplicate the ‘Background’ layer again (see step 2) and drag it above ‘Layer 1’.

Click on the ‘Add layer mask’ button at the bottom of the ‘layers’ palette. This will make a mask from our selection.

*note: Notice that it says “Add vector mask” in the picture above. This is because I have already added the layer mask to Background copy 2.

Toggle off the “Background copy’ layer by clicking on the Eye symbol.

STEP 7: Refine our Mask

Now that we have a mask its time to touch up our extraction.

One way to do this is with ‘Levels’. With the ‘Background copy 2’ Mask selected (make sure the mask thumbnail is highlighted). Ctrl-L ( Image --> Adjustments --> Levels)to open the ‘levels’ dialog box. With the ‘Levels’ dialog box open, drag the sliders (inside the ‘Input Levels’) around until the edges of your image start to look good. Hit OK.

With CS3 you might find it better to use ‘Refine edge’. Ctrl-Alt-R (Select --> Refine edge) to open the ‘Refine edge’ dialog box.

Here you can see that I choose to view my image on a white background. This made it easier to see fly away hair. I expanded my mask and added a slight feather to the edge.

This is all fine and good for the hair, but we went to all that extra trouble to have nice edges elsewhere. Now they are soft. To get that hard edge back just use your ‘History brush’(Y).

If you zoom in you can still see some artifacts on the edges left over from the extraction. To get rid of this make sure that the ‘Mask’ is still active, grab the ‘Blur tool’ (R) from the ‘Tools’ palette and go around the edges. This will soften the mask a bit.

One more option is Filter --> Other --> Minimum/Maximum, set to 1-3. Followed by Filter --> Blur --> Gaussian Blur, set to 0.5-1. This is a pretty advanced technique and takes a lot of playing around to get right.

Don’t forget that you can paint in your mask using the ‘Brush tool’ (B) as well.