People Removal

[Lofty1967]

Hi Guys,
Could someone please tell me the best way to remove the bride and groom from this photo to put onto a plain background, I have tried the quick selection tool and the pen tool with the Refine Edge but seem to have problems with these options especially when it comes to the hair part, when I use Refine Edge and try to paint Erase or Refine it goes a blurry white color on the inside of the subjects hair.
Much appreciated.
Lofty

[Siciliana]

You are on the right track. I would tidy up all the edges that you can easily paint directly in the mask, then go back into the mask panel and paint the edges of the hair with the refine edge brush carefully at a smaller radius to get the straggly hairs. The trick is that if it reduces opacity in the part of the hair you want to keep opaque, go back to the mask and paint over it with a white brush on overlay mode. This is a tricky background for this hair. You can also try copying your masked layer and using the decontaminate colors feature to try to fake in some of the edges. I can't really give you much more guidance than that. You can do it but it will take some time, and you will likely have to do some careful playing with feathering or masking out some opacity in places to make it blend realistically. Now is the time for your artistic touch

[0lBaldy]

used the native Extract tool in Photoshop as described in this old video by Russell Brown...
then a bit of very quick D&B (Dodge&Burn) to lighten some shadows & reduce some wrinkles then some cloning to repair some hair border

If your working with CS5 then there are three newer extraction videos from DR. Brown:

CS5: New Advanced Masking... Episode # CS5_007

CS5: New Masking Basics

CS5: A Crazy Advanced Masking Solution to a Really Challenging Project


All the above taken from the official Russell Brown Tips & Techniques page

[Tony W]

Nice job OlBaldy and useful links.

[Lofty1967]

Hi Guys,
Thanks for your answers, I have tried on a few photos that I have and some work okay whilst others don't work at all, is if fair to say that the Refine Edge or Refine Mask tools work only well under favorable conditions, for example high contrast pictures and not pictures with a lot of clutter in the background.
Many thanks
Lofty