I have tried a few times (using Dr Browns technique) to make a good mask of the bride in the foreground of this image so as to then add some colour to the background. I cant seem to make a good mask of the hair.

The blue channel seemed to have the most contrast so I used it as the basis for the mask. Using levels I dragged the shadow/highlight sliders in to bring up the contast between the figure in the foreground, and the background. I tried some dodging (highlights) and burning (shadows) to make the mask but still seem to get a lot of artefacts around the ringlets that ulitmately affect the selection.

Does anyone have a more effective way to create a mask in these situations.

there's a pretty good thread on hair here: http://www.retouchpro.com/forums/showthread.php?t=10743

Craig

There was an excellent tutorial on the adobe site maybe 18 months ago, cannot find it personally, but it managed to mask hair using the highpass filter. Unfortunately I cannot recall the details specifically.

Not the same tutorial but maybe try this http://studio.adobe.com/us/tips/tip.jsp?p=1&id=100674&xml=phs8kbhairmask

Hi

It sound like your technique is not the problem. You can only get a perfect mask from a perfect image.

Since you tried the blue channel I tried the Red.

Fortunately if you just want to add colour to the background then the mask does not need to be perfect.

Ken

Just with a little fiddle, this is different, using a layer copy with screen, the subject already looks superimposed over the background, rather unaturally

Nice, Ken, but I hope someone will cover up the bra that's peeping through.. LOL

Thanks Swampy
I also fixed her shoulder.
That’s the great thing about RetouchPRO. Lots of eyes make a better job. And I was obviously looking in all the wrong places.

Ken

Great job Ken

I think in hindsight my mistake was dragging the Levels sliders too far in which creates a high contast image with some loss of the fine detail. I will have another crack and see how I go.

Ken - I really like the make up job that you did. I have so far been unable to get such a smooth, uniform effect. Can you elaborate a little on your method.

Too nice a picture not to try....

Ken,

Great job! :thumbsup: ... It might be my monitor..but the front part of her hair look a tad green ....

jasosmith,

You might not like it since I didn't go for very strong changes .... I tried to keep the 'twilight' feeling of the original ....no strong contrast and muted colours...

P.S. ... corrected the 'showing' bra only after reading Swampy's post....

Oooppss ... forgot to post my mask based on the blue channel...

Great job Flora - and you got rid of the messy armpit too.

I have just tried several times and I cant seem to get enough contrast in the image to start making a mask without ruining the detail in the hair. I have tried using levels, Apply, Channel mixer with the same results. Flora could you possibly run through the method that you used.

Jason

There are many ways of going about making the selection. If I can find a good channel to work with, I'll start there.

On a copy of the blue channel, I did gross selections of the extranious background areas and filled with white (yes.. white because I'm going to inverse this whole thing when I am done, but it's just easier for me to work with black details.) Use a black brush and paint in the basic shape, but leave the hair tendrils alone.

NOW I run Levels. You can see on my mask sample that I pulled whites and midtones way to the left. Adjust the midtone slider to get a pretty good representation of the hair tendrils. You can leave some gray in there to help the blending and soften the edges for the whispy look.

After doing the Levels adjustment, I Invert the blue copy mask. Use a white brush to paint out the water in the lower right. At this point I may use the Dodge/Burn tools to refine the definitions of the tendrils.

Apply the mask to a copy of your Background layer. Adjust the mask as necessary. Sometimes adding a slight gaussian blur to the mask helps, other times not. Just depends on resolution you are working in.

dee dee

Hi jasosmith,

thanks for your kindness! :pleased:

I basically created my Mask as Dee Dee did ... but since I had taken the snapshots already I'm going to post it anyway ...

* Selected the blue Channel.

* Selected around the bride, inverted the selection anf filled it with white. (Attachment 1)

* Used the Levels to increase contrast .... (Attachment 2)

TIP: Use the midtone slider in the process to smoothen the transition and avoid eliminating precious details...

* Refined the mask using:
1) a semisoft edged brush set to Overlay (Tip from Katrin Eismann's Book on masking) (Opacity 20-40%) and carefully painted black on the fine strands of hair and white around them.
2) a semisoft edged black brush brush to fill the few light spots inside the selection. (Attachment 3)

* Inverted the mask and lightly blurred it. (Attachment 4)

(Attachment 5) is how the hair will look after applying the mask against a flat coloured background.

Hope this helps.

Flora
Thanks for your kind comments. Please do not adjust your monitor. You are quite right it’s my bad mask that caused the green hair.

Jasosmith
My picture really was not intended as anything more than to show you a different background.
What I actually did with the skin started as an accident. I applied Neat Image to reduce the noise and had my settings wrong. I liked the effect so I left it in.
Neat Image is a free program available here
http://www.neatimage.com/download.html

If you want to do the skin properly there are two good tutorials below along with another on masks by Flora.


Flora Masks
http://retouchpro.com/tutorials/?m=show&id=120
Nancy Skin
http://retouchpro.com/tutorials/index.php?m=show&id=191
Patrick Skin
http://retouchpro.com/tutorials/index.php?m=show&id=148

Also have a look at the bottom of this page. There are five links to other related threads.

Ken

Had to have a play with this one.

My masking method is substantially the same as others have used.

Thanks Flora, Swampy and others for your help.

I did some editing in photoshop using layers and highlight/shadow and some blur on the background to draw attention to her..plus a little on her to smooth her skin out some.

TokenArt

Instead of masking the bride, I tried adjusted color channels and levels individually, and then ran a little softener across the photo, and this is the end result.