Please Help with Hair Mask

[Richard Cox]

I have tried many many hours, techniques and masking programs to remove the background from these pictures. I have no problems until it comes to my daughters hair against the similar color background. Any advice or help would be appreciated. I am trying to do a collage with a third photo.




http://www.flickr.com/photos/31947525@N07/3439125252/
http://www.flickr.com/photos/31947525@N07/3439124948/

[albatrosss]

I just did the routine method using levels to produce the mask. Then I cheated a bit by cloning some curls.

[Daviskw]

Do you have a highres version you can post a link to?

Butch

[0lBaldy]

Originally Posted by Richard Cox

I have tried many many hours, techniques and masking programs to remove the background from these pictures. I have no problems until it comes to my daughters hair against the similar color background. Any advice or help would be appreciated. I am trying to do a collage with a third photo.

http://www.flickr.com/photos/31947525@N07/3439125252/
http://www.flickr.com/photos/31947525@N07/3439124948/

Richard, Welcome to RetouchPRO!
Flikr puts a gif over the picture to help prevent downloads..the address for one of the pictures (found using the page source code) would be: http://farm4.static.flickr.com/3559/...7cfb96.jpg?v=0 OR change your privacy settings or copyright

An easier way for folks to get access to your picture would be:
***~~POSTING~~~***
You can post a fairly large pictures which is under 100k using the save for web function in Photoshop as described here:
Size, Quality and/or Format your Attached Images.. (Click here)
This may also help some... How to attach Files/Images to your Posts or Threads?(Click here)

If you want to post a larger resolution that is over 100K then you can host your image elsewhere and attach a link, but also please attach an under 100K version here (so the thread remains useful in the future, regardless of external links).
Alternative Image Hosts are: ImageVenue.com (3Meg max, free) or pixentral.com (2Meg max, free) or photobucket.com (1 Meg max free,... 5 Meg PRO)-- then post a link here in the thread to the site that is hosting your larger image.

[Richard Cox]

I resized the photos to 800x600 and attached them here. I can email them to anyone. Does anyone know of a web site where I can post the original to.

I added one of the photos to Deviantart.

Thanks for all the help.

http://fc02.deviantart.com/fs45/f/20...ardcox8592.jpg

127Web.jpg

128Web.jpg

[amica999]

Richard, this is a challenge - at least for me I have tried to work with an inverted green channel and tried to increase the contrast on the whites selectively (ie make selections and apply levels to it) with another copy of the green channel selectively tried to increase the darker parts like the top of the head, than inverted that one and merged both masks, it worked but I was not so pleased with the result. I guess you will have to cheat to get a believable cutout. May I offer this tut? http://www.russellbrown.com/tips_tech.html

[0lBaldy]

[QUOTE=Richard Cox;227110]I have tried many many hours, techniques and masking programs to remove the background from these pictures. I have no problems until it comes to my daughters hair against the similar color background. Any advice or help would be appreciated. I am trying to do a collage with a third photo.
QUOTE]
Have you tried cutting them all out then selecting a good background for your "collage" that would compliment all of them? (and possibly hide any mistakes)

When painting on the mask I carefully used a very small soft Black or White brush around the outlines then a larger brush for the large areas..
Along with the cutout I also brightened the eyes and cleaned the teeth some and smoothed the skin a bit

~ ~ Original ~ ~ ~ Explain ~ ~ ~ White ~ ~ ~ Rock ~ ~

[crazyfly1]

I'm gonna say your problem is the orange cast, get rid of that and it's a breeze. I used a curves adjustment with the "enhance per channel contrast" checked in the options panel of curves. then I applied "equalize". From here it should be easy to use a blue channel, channel mask.

[Richard Cox]

Thank you all for the help and suggestions. I am so glad I found this web site. I have been like a kid in a candy store.

[unimatrix001]

When i was looking at this message there are alot of good tips amica999 had the right idea to make a mask. have been trying to remember where i found this tutorial and when amica999 gave the link to russell brown website i finally rememered. nice tut here
http://av.adobe.com/russellbrown/AdvancedMasking.mov

[RCG]

dup the layer using a small brush burn the edges of the hair,then using the dodge tool go around an lighten the areas of the background you can then have a density difference to work from