Whispy Hair Woes...

[rnbluvva]

Thanks for the encouragement Flora.

To everyone who shared insight and tips on this topic... thanks a million!

[Kraellin]

by george, i think she's got it

K.

[rnbluvva]

I think I need a lot more practice! It's strange but with Brown's technique I get this i pixel outline on most extractions. I'm not sure how he got his so clean. I get better results with most images using my tablet and pen and the extract feature in PS. The hair thing sometimes works with Brown's technique, but sometimes not.

I am working on another weird one. This one really did something strange. When I combined Alpha 1 with Alpha 2 it knocked out some of the hair. I'm still trying to figure out what I did wrong. See below.

[rnbluvva]

Not sure what the technical term for this is, but the following image attachement (1st image) shows that ghosting type thing that is going on. This doesn't happen with the Extract Feature tho.

2nd image- I just did a really quick 2 minute job with the PS Extract tool to show you what I mean.

Are there any other extraction methods that will work for different situations? Seems like the technique used has to be based on the image and what it's presenting.

[Duv]

You should be able to get rid of the "ghosting" or fringing by applying Select-Modify-Contract or Filter-Other-Minimum.

Cheers
Dave

[Ken Fournelle]

Duv,

Thanks for that tip, but when you do either Select>Modify>Contract or Filter>Other>Minimum, the options only allow you to correct down to 1 pixel. This often removes the fine, 1 pixel hairs one is trying to save.

I assume these two applications are "contracting" or "minimizing" a border or whatever by the pixel amount one selects? Correct?

And isn't this technique like Doug Nelson's procedure of adjusting the middle slider on a Levels Adjustment to the Layer Mask? Doug?

K

[Duv]

Ken, I wouldn't use Contract or Minimum for halos around the hair for reasons you suggest. Levels to tighten the mask followed by a small amount of Gaussian Blur ie .5 to offset the hardness would be better for hair.

Cheers
Dave

[realaqu]

Hi
this picture looks a little interesting.

realaqu

[creeduk]

That's a tricky one so many dark and light areas all around the hair, With a abetter resolution it would not be so bad.

[rnbluvva]

Originally Posted by Duv

You should be able to get rid of the "ghosting" or fringing by applying Select-Modify-Contract or Filter-Other-Minimum.

Cheers
Dave

Thanks Dave, will give that a try.

[Lasa]

This is a very old thread but I applied the GML plugin to it and it worked great. The GML doesn't work on all images but what it does well it does incredibly well..no halo, no need to defringe or duplicate.. I placed on a gray backgorund but it could be on black just as well. No fringes what so ever...

Lasa

[aussie]

Lasa,

What is the "GML plugin"?

[aussie]

found it but only seems to be campatible with windows

[ogee]

Originally Posted by Lasa

This is a very old thread but I applied the GML plugin to it and it worked great. The GML doesn't work on all images but what it does well it does incredibly well..no halo, no need to defringe or duplicate.. I placed on a gray backgorund but it could be on black just as well. No fringes what so ever...

Lasa

How accurate did you have to be when you used the GML plug-in and what highlight brush size did you use? I'm just trying to learn how to use the plug-in and figure I might as well start out correctly.

[Lasa]

I used a 9 and 19 size brushes...don't cut it to close to the hair give it some breathing room. Very clean extracts.
Its funny, all these extract tools work great on hair and smoke etc. but tend to bite when extracting a clean high contrast simple edge on white..
Go figure? But then again those clean edges are easy using a zillion other tools...I still find it weird.

Lasa