Creative challenge 007: Knocking out a background

[DannyRaphael]

We haven't done one of these in awhile...

Challenge: Replace the green background with something interesting...

Your choice of program / plugin / and/or tricks.

Please describe your method so rookies can follow along.

[Duv]

Duplicated image. Made a copy of green channel in RGB. Used levels on the a channel in LAB. Copied and pasted into Green copy channel. Not too happy with chosen background or green remnants left in hair..but it's a start.

Cheers

Dave

[Duv]

Probably the easiest with this type of background is Replace Color.

Dave

[Cassidy]

Made a mask from channel mixer - monochromatic, dodging and burning and used the desaturation brush to remove some of the greenish tinge on the hair ends

[Gary Richardson]

Made a mask from red channel.

Main problems I had here, was the disparity in resolution between girl and new background, and difference in lighting between indoor and outdoor (not overly pleased with result, but don't have time to play too much at present).

[Cassidy]

Thought I'd have another go at this as the first one was not too clear. Anyone care to reveal their method for removing the green colour cast off the ends of the hair? I used a mixture of colour and low opacity eraser.

[thana]

hmm, wouldn't say, that THIS background is interesting, but it suits here, i think.
i didn't do much, changing (dear me, i have NO idea how to say that in english..->) saturation of green (?), adding blur on the edges and casting inner shadow were main actions here. oh, and after doing this to that poor woman and merging her with (or to ) background i played a little with curves.

second attachment is for blue-lovers

[Cassidy]

Originally Posted by Gary Richardson

Made a mask from red channel.

Main problems I had here, was the disparity in resolution between girl and new background, and difference in lighting between indoor and outdoor (not overly pleased with result, but don't have time to play too much at present).

Love the way you captured the wisps of hair, tell us how did you remove or avoid the green colour cast

[bert de wolff]

oops, what will get you are the things you don't see coming

bert (who couldn't get rid of the greens either)

[Xaran]

Used the red channel for masking and after merging the layers pulled the hair strands out with the smudge tool to hide the green fringe.

Christine

[Gary Richardson]

Hi Cassidy,

I cheated a little with this one.

After creating mask, there was quite a lot of green bleed, so I created a new layer set to colour mode. I then Ctrl+clicked the girl layer so that her outline was selected in the colour layer.

Now, using a clone brush, I sampled from good colour areas and painted green hair and skin.

By using clone tool instead of paint brush, you don't have to resample as much, as sample point moves with you.

Use Ctrl+H to hide selection dots (which get in way) don't forget to undo this after you've finished.

[Legacy~Art]

As it is Halloween!

I added the lucky lady with the halloween stars!

[Duv]

That's pretty sweet Elle! Even like the Halloween cleavage.

Cheers

Dave

[cazubi]

Very cool, Legacy~art.

Here is mine. I used the select color (green) and then deleted the green. I used the quick mask to clean up edges, adjustment>replace color selecting green, move slider until green is replaced with a matching hair color.

After I put her into a new background, I adjusted her color, and highlight to try and blend her into her new environment.

Cathy

[grafx]

Sarah's bored!

1.) Selected green, selection/modify/smooth, selection/modify/contract, deleted green
2.) Select color range, selected remaining greens and made them match hair.
3.) Played with lighting.
4.) Matched color to the "Jaws" layer

[Janet Petty]

I too made a mask from the channels and ended up with some green cast to her hair. Rather than replace color, or whatever, I opted to tweak the mask itself once I had her safely placed over the new background. I then worked in hue/sat, photo filters, etc. so that she would blend with the background. I did a merged vis and used the smudge brush to tweak her hair on the final copy. I also tried to determine the direction of diffused light in the new background and added subtle shading to her body to reflect that.

The hardest part was getting her skin tones to look as if they belonged in the photo. I'm still not happy with it; but decided to give up so that I could eat dinner.

Janet

[leuallen]

Looks like a mug shot to me, so maybe this is where she belongs.

First got cell picture off of google.

Drug image of girl to cell image.

Selective color on girl - increased greens. Background was only thing with green.

Channels girl - copied blue layer. Made mask. Adjusting the greens in previous step lightend background and made masking easier.

Added mask to image of girl. Refined mask.

Ugly green halos - desaturate green with brush set to Hue and color white. About 20-40%. Worked at high zoom and just painted greens. Desat helpful for next step although not always necessary. Desat makes color take better next step.

Brush set to color and color sampled from nearby areas. Deep color sampled. Painted over desaturated areas giving them color of nearby areas 40%+.

Played with color of girl. Ended up using curves, Hue/Sat, and selective color in a weird combo. Idea was to get her desaturated and more neutral to match the background. Also used a tone layer set to blend mode color and filled with color sampled from upper left wall of cell. Blending mode and opacity faded after fill.

Gaussian blur mask - a couple of times - she seemed to sharp against the background. Copied girl image and mask to new layer and gave a slight blur to the girl. Reduced opacity somewhat.

Larry

[Fox54Black]

I like this one, it looks like its actually part of the scene. It also looks flat, without depth, which is kind of neat because it looks like a carboard cutout.

[raniday]

Everyone has done an excellent job of extracting her. I cheated, a lot, and made her into a painting. First, I used Digital Camera Noise Remover, replaced the green background color with deep blue in PS, took her to Painter and painted in some white and softened it, and used Captured Bristle to give her a virtual hair trimming and paint her hair & face, back to PS, where I gave it a watercolor layer and an Impressionist Distressed Japanese Paper layer and sandstone texture.

[Fox54Black]

I love all the results so far. I used the Russell Brown technique for removing the background because I couldn't get a good selection any other way. I can't remember which site I got the background from, but I got the link from a thread over at dpreview over a year ago. After I saved it and closed my editor, I realized that I forgot to blur the background, oh well.

[Duv]

Originally Posted by Fox54Black

I love all the results so far. I used the Russell Brown technique for removing the background because I couldn't get a good selection any other way. I can't remember which site I got the background from, but I got the link from a thread over at dpreview over a year ago. After I saved it and closed my editor, I realized that I forgot to blur the background, oh well.

Pretty good lookin extraction to me!

Dave

[Kraellin]

changed the background, gave her a bit of a smile and made her eyes bluer.

Craig

[Nanls]

I love Halloween!
I cheated and used color range to remove most of the green and then used the color replacement tool to turn the remaining green to her hair color...
Pasted her in the background, matched color, but turned it down a bit... then used lighting effects. Jamie lee is behind her somewhere!
~Nancy~
_________________________________
http://www.fixthepixs.com
http://www.datepixs.com

[dbuckle]

Wow lots of great stuff guys. Here is my attempt.

[vidanse]

This was a good exercise. Hard to get the green cast off. Made a mask from the red channel. Refined it by using levels. Tried to use hue sat to lessen it. Still remained. So I decided a greenish background would be a good choice.

Great job everyone. Especially like the Halloween poster!

Ciao Vicki

[Duv]

Seems to only make sense Vicki. Why fight it? I think it's something you have to be careful with when using Chromakey backgrounds, especially if you place the subject to close to it. The way the subject is lit might also add to the problem.

Dave

[Cameraken]

Hi Everyone.

The whole point of using a ChromaGreen background is to make extraction easy. Unfortunately the model has stood too close to the background and the Green has coloured her hair.

I made a mask from the red channel
removed the green hair like Gary did.
New background from clouds and noise
Tinted and darkened her tee shirt
Cleaned her skin a little
Whitened the eyes and changed the catch light
Changed the chain to gold
Changed the perspective a little
Added a vignette

A very pretty young lady

Ken

[Gary Richardson]

Love the background Ken, has almost a Metallic Paint look to it.

[twinkissed]

Couldn't think of anything else. Still needed a play break from work.

[Nanls]

Very nice, Ken.... love the background... can you tell us the step to creating it?

~Nancy~
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Photo Retouching, Photo Restoration
http://www.fixthepixs.com
http://www.datepixs.com