Hello out there in RPland.

I am working on the attached image and 11 other variant images, for product shots that will be for the web and printed media.

What I need is the greenhouse blurred with sharp focus for the plants and light fixture.
This image has been worked on some, I tried a Tut from Flora using a channel worked into a mask, I also tried selection by hand.

I am looking for an easier technique to select the Plants, Light and Support chains from the rest of the greenhouse.

In the attached image I have hand selected the items listed above, and lightened and blurred the greenhouse, but I have not yet lightened the light fixture.

For all fixture/position combinations that "I need to have, I have blurred shots, bulbs on and bulbs off shots to work with.

I hope what I am trying to accomplish is clear.
Thanks for any Ideas.
Larry

I don't see any way around some manual mask painting, but you can do the heavy lifting by copying a contrasty channel into a layer mask on a duplicate layer and use curves to up the contrast. Then manually paint with black and white to begin cleanup. Finally, switch over to the actual duplicate image and apply your blur, then activate the layer mask thumbnail and do your fine tuning with a tiny soft black or white paintbrush.

A useful 21mb movie
http://av.adobe.com/russellbrown/AdvancedMasking.mov

I was hoping there would be an "easy way" to do this.
The confusion between the light, reflectors and the background has me wondering where things stop and start at?
I have used duplicate channels for the begining of a mask only once, all other times I have tediuosly traced or painted masks, but these images were to much.
I will check out Doc Browns video.
Thanks for taking a look.
Sincere Thanks
Larry

Hi,

Larry,

you can usually make 'easy selections' even of difficult areas (flying hair, trees etc.) when the contrast between the subject to be selected and its background is very strong or the colours are clearly very different (like the example I used in my Tutorial)...

If, like in your picture here, you have many different objects in your background, and the colours are mostly a gradation of the same colour ... well....then... there is no easy way to select it (at least, not that I know of ...)!!! All the 'easy ways' will only take you so far, after which you'll have to refine your mask manually.

Most of the times you need a really exact and very accurate masking ... but is it the case with this picture? ... What I mean is ...

a)is it really necessary to select precisely around each petal or chain link?? ...

b)Or is it the overall result that counts? ...

It might not be what you are looking for, but if point b) is an acceptable solution, here is an easy way to get there...

* Duplicate your background twice and, working on the topmost Layer...

* ... use the Pen Tool to make a path around the part you want to emphasize.. (this procedure will create a working Path) (Attachment 1)

* turn your working path into a selection... (At this point you could enter the 'Quick Mask Mode' and refine your mask if you wish...) and, with the selection still active, create a Layer Mask ...

* Click on the Layer directly underneath to activate it and experiment with the different effects to fade, darken, desaturate etc. until you get a result you like. (At this point, the edge between your faded background and the still sharp part will be very hard and looking terrible)

* Click on the Mask of your topmost Layer, go to Filter>Blur>Gaussian Blur and increase the Radius until you see the transition edge soften and blend in with the still sharp part.

This procedure will create a light 'halo' around the subject which could actually help the highlighting/emphasizing procedure... (Attachment 2)

In Attachment 3 I cropped the image to further emphasize flowers and light fixture.

Hope this helps... :happy:

I will try what you suggest, to learn another way to do this.
The idea was my own to have the roof of the green house blurry so the product light fixture would be accentuated.
The resultant roof was blurred and used a blending mode of Screen, or maybe that was Scream haha, so it came out a very soft blurry High Key image. These images only look accepatble, to me, at less than 100% viewing, so I am still waiting to hear back from the client.

I have already sent in the images, but they took WAY too long to do.
For my last image I checked out Karin E's book Masking and Compositing, she wrote about using channels and blending modes to increase the contrast and develop a mask from some production layers and channels.

Thanks for your thoughts and response.
Larry