Cutting/Masking hair

[jaroslav]

Hi

I need to cut a model ( with hair ) form background. I can't use any plugin like fluid mask. I can use only a photoshop. It'll be a part of exam on my studies.

Here I've got a sample pic:

http://malgorzatabarska.republika.pl...techniki/1.jpg


And here is my 1st Try
http://www.freeimagehosting.net/imag...3637fb8dfe.jpg

here is a description what I did:


In a 1st step I used Image -> Calcultaions

here I mixed red channel with blue ( color dodge )

next i played with levels, then I got a mask ( I had to overpaint with black some pieces of mask )


As you see, there are some spots of backgorund between hair.

I try to remove this with Color range and selective color but it's not good.

[Godmother]

what version of Photoshop? Any?
x

[jaroslav]

I've got CS5 but could be for other version

[mistermonday]

Hi Jaroslav, you may want to try calculations but chose Red for both channels. mode = Add with scale = 1 and offset = -128.
See attached. The background needs a bit of clean up but he frizzy hair in the high res version is almost identical to the original. By the way the orig is pretty nasty in that a lot of the hair is translucent and already looks like its been masked.
Regards, Murray

[Godmother]

Originally Posted by mistermonday

Hi Jaroslav, you may want to try calculations but chose Red for both channels. mode = Add with scale = 1 and offset = -128.
See attached. The background needs a bit of clean up but he frizzy hair in the high res version is almost identical to the original. By the way the orig is pretty nasty in that a lot of the hair is translucent and already looks like its been masked.
Regards, Murray

If the homework is to EXTRACT IT then yes, that's the way to go

If the assignment is to PLACE it in a new BG
You can make two copies of your masked subject
Then you can alter all the reds from a bottom one (hue/saturation - desaturate reds and turn them a bit more green)

And the top one you can have not such an accurate mask and erase all the edges because you have RED all over the hair.

[Flora]

Hi jaroslav,

if your task is to change the background colour only it could be done with a single Hue/Saturation Layer by tewaking the 'reds'( Attachment 1)

If your task is extraction, I did the following:

• Duplicated the background layer and created a white mask for the duplicate.

• Alt+clicked on the mask so white was all I could see.

• Image>Apply Image (values in Attachment 2)..that gave me the base mask to work on.

• Applied Levels on the mask (values in Attachment 3)

• Refined the mask using black and white soft brush set to Overlay changing its Opacity as necessary ... (my final mask Attachment 4)

• Duplicated the masked layer 'playing' with Blending Modes, Opacity refining the Mask and adding a Selective Colors Adjustment Layer to remove the colour cast on the edge line Hair/Background until I was happy with the result.

• My final result on white background > Attachment 5

.... I'll continue in a second post since I've reached the 5 Attachments limit ...

[Flora]

Masked Layer on different coloured backgrounds (Attachment 1)

Snapshot of my workflow (Attachment 2)

Nice work Murray!!

[mistermonday]

Flora, great masking!
I found my first Calculation left a little too much to clean up on the background so I tweaked the approach. On a copy of the original, perform a Selective Color Adj by selecting the Black channel and moving the black sider all the way to the right. This intensifies the contrast between the hair and the bg. After that a Calculations with both channels being the Red from the intensified layer, with scale = 1 and Offset = -90 gives you a very clean hair edge. Invert the channel and the face and shoulders can be painted back in in 1 minute to complete the mask, and there is not much to clean up on the bg.
On this image there is a lot of red spill all over the hair and depending on what new background (if any) you choose you will need to adjust for it via the methods others have shown above, or add a recolor layer or use the Blend If sliders if appropriate.
Good luck on your exam.
Regards, Murray