Cutting out hair

[Canna W]

I recently did a cut and paste pic at flickr which included a woman's head. Someone helpfully gave me feedback that the hair looked too 'cut out'. She is Russian, and she suggested using the following technique to make hair look more natural. I don't really understand what she is saying, and wondered if someone else does.... I would like to know this technique if possible.

"Thin hair is the main difficulty in cutting.
I usually make another copy of the layer, blur doing and put it in the mode of multiplication and about 50% opacity to background, under the main image. I do basic picture clearer on the edges. Blured layer at the bottom hides the imposition of fine hair on a different background. "

If anyone can elaborate it would be much appreciated!

[Der_W]

I guess it's similar to duplicating the cut out model, setting the lower layer's blending mode to "Multiply" and on the upper layer smearing/erasing some of the hair parts that have fringing around them.
However this can make hair look pretty darn dark, so maybe you'll have to bring in a levels adjustment layer to the bottom layer as well.

[John A. Kauth]

Re: Cutting out hair

Hi Canna,

Russell Brown is one of the Guru's at Adobe. He maintains a website with some amazing tips and techniques. Go to http://www.russellbrown.com/tips_tech.html

Scroll down until you find "CS4 Advanced Masking Techniques for Really Bad Hair Days." There is a video on how to mask hair as well as a set of Hair Brushes to download. His technique involves getting the best mask you can and then painting the fine hairs back in. These techniques should also work in earlier versions of Photoshop. If I can be of further help contact me.

BTW this is my first post, I joined this wonderful site today.

Thanks,
John A. Kauth

[Canna W]

I guess it's similar to duplicating the cut out model, setting the lower layer's blending mode to "Multiply" and on the upper layer smearing/erasing some of the hair parts that have fringing around them.
However this can make hair look pretty darn dark, so maybe you'll have to bring in a levels adjustment layer to the bottom layer as well.

Hi Jonas - thank you for that. I attach a pic of a man that I cut and pasted into a new background. I duplicated the background layer and changed the blend to overlay. I then went to the top layer and smudged out hair on the left hand side of the black line. (Is that what you mean by smearing/erasing some of the hairs that have fringing around them? Hum, not at all sure about that...) I then did a curves adjustment on the overlay layer to make it brighter.

To be honest, I don't see how changing the background layer had any effect on what I did to the hair. I probably did something wrong - I've got a strong feeling I got the wrong end of the stick - but the background layers seem irrelevant to what happens to the hair.

Russell Brown is one of the Guru's at Adobe. He maintains a website with some amazing tips and techniques. Go to http://www.russellbrown.com/tips_tech.html

Scroll down until you find "CS4 Advanced Masking Techniques for Really Bad Hair Days." There is a video on how to mask hair as well as a set of Hair Brushes to download. His technique involves getting the best mask you can and then painting the fine hairs back in.

Thank you for that John. I'm a keen Russell Brown fan, but had not seen that tut - so that was excellent! I need to look at it a few more times. It seems a wonderfully quick way of dealing with pesky hair.

[Der_W]

What I meant was changing the background layer to "Multiply" (or "Overlay" if that works better for you) and smearing in the mask of the top layer, so the hair from the bottom layer shine through (and darken everything because they're multiplying into the background).
In this case with the lighter hair you could better try "Screen" (the hair is light, so will be lightening and the fringe hopefully disappears).

Just another tool in the box, sometimes it helps, sometimes not.
If you could upload the original image of the man and background I could try to cut it out and upload the psd file :-)

[Canna W]

Hi Jonas,

I attach the original file - with the man still in his original background. If you cannot upload a psd file of your edit, maybe you could do a screen grab of your layers palette, and upload that as well? I would be very interested to see what you do

[Der_W]

I cut him out using the blue channel, screened the bottom layer and desaturated it (helps against the color fringing, normally I'd probably use a new layer on color mode instead and paint in the right color).
Next I used a curve to darken the layer a bit. Darkening makes less hair shine through, lightening would bring more back. I felt like darkening it ;-)
The last curves adj. layer darkens the highlights a little more and is painted in selectively where the hair was almost glowing.
The layer above is on "Normal" mode and the layer mask was painted inwards a little to get the effect of the screened layer beneath.

Could use some more work though.

http://www.sendspace.com/file/2cx0jn

Hope that helps :-)

[Canna W]

Thank you so much for that Jonas. Great job!

It was very clear from the psd file what you had done.

Now, I haven't come to grips with doing selections using channels yet, though I have dabbled vaguely with a couple of tutorials on the subject. As a result my selections are usually very crude, and I use "hair" brushes to smudge out false hairs, or I paint them in with a very small paintbrush. The technique my friend was describing, and which you have (I think really brilliantly) enacted, is one that my selection skills are not yet up to copying. I am very impressed though. You technique made a huge difference to the outcome. I'm going to keep your psd on file if you don't mind and keep a link to this thread. I will in the near further try again with channel selections, and then I will come back to this and try it....

Thank you so much for taking the time to explain such a great technique!

[Der_W]

No problem, I'm always happy to help :-)

If you want to know something about using channels to create masks, maybe these videos can help you:
http://av.adobe.com/russellbrown/Erasing_M_Bkgrd_SM.mov
http://av.adobe.com/russellbrown/Ext...Monster_SM.mov
http://av.adobe.com/russellbrown/For...tract_M_SM.mov
http://av.adobe.com/russellbrown/Fri...Monster_SM.mov
http://av.adobe.com/russellbrown/AdvancedMasking.mov

Or even better, use calculations to combine different channels:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Vqg4m2q2eek
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GsXbDLglasA

If you still have any questions, feel free to ask or write me a PM if I don't answer (somehow I seem to lose some of the threads' links ;-)).

[John A. Kauth]

Hi Jonas,

Great job on this file as well as the tutorial suggestions.

One thing many people learning Channel Masking don't realize is that there are nine channels to work with. In a difficult masking situation I work on a duplicate file and check the RGB, CMYK and A,B Lab channels for help with the mask and copy the channel back into the original document. Along with calculations I also try the apply the image command and the channel mixer. Search Google for tutorials on the above.

Keep in mind that Photoshop is a vast toolbox and there are many ways to accomplish the same task. Depending on the task some tools work better than others on a given image. Experiment and have fun!

Thanks,
John

[Der_W]

There are even more channels, if you take HSB and HSL into account ;-)
And you can use the layer's palette as well (the black and white adjustment layer for example can give very good starting points).
You can also create your own CMYK to bump the GCR (that'll bring everything without color into the black channel, although you could probably get nearly the same results with a saturation mask).
Another great help is the "Difference" mode. Try it out by creating a new layer, choosing the Smudge tool and checking "Sample all layers". Now smudge in the background over the hair and when done with all the edges, set the layer's blending mode to "Difference".

The possibilities are nearly endless and like almost everything in Photoshop, fantasy is your only restriction :-)

But in most cases you should be good with the original channels or maybe some help from CMYK/LAB channels and the pen tool.

Some day maybe I'll record a video or two on masking :-)

[Pictus]

Vertus Fluid Mask

[Canna W]

Jonas..

Thank you very much indeed for those links, and I will follow them up. Great!!!

John...

And now the conversation has gone a 'lil bit over my head

Pictus....

Nice edit!

I googled Vertus Fluid Mask and was most impressed by their gallery. They really seem to do the job well.

[Canna W]

Hi Jonas, just a note to say I am having a go with those tutorials. Really good! Russell Brown is a magician rather than photoshopper Thank you so much for your help. I really think I am going to learn a lot with the tutorials.

[larryp7639]

Originally Posted by Der_W

No problem, I'm always happy to help :-)

If you want to know something about using channels to create masks, maybe these videos can help you:
http://av.adobe.com/russellbrown/Erasing_M_Bkgrd_SM.mov
http://av.adobe.com/russellbrown/Ext...Monster_SM.mov
http://av.adobe.com/russellbrown/For...tract_M_SM.mov
http://av.adobe.com/russellbrown/Fri...Monster_SM.mov
http://av.adobe.com/russellbrown/AdvancedMasking.mov

Or even better, use calculations to combine different channels:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Vqg4m2q2eek
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GsXbDLglasA

If you still have any questions, feel free to ask or write me a PM if I don't answer (somehow I seem to lose some of the threads' links ;-)).

Such a very amazing link!
Thanks you for the post.

[arianasilvery]

its fine. I trim the hair away from my bichon's eyes all the time.
They will not go blind unless you stab her in the eye with the scissors!
Here is a website for grooming westies: