Removing Background

[Daviskw]

Hi admirer

I'm not sure what you mean by highpass I hope you will explain. Also I often use either the channel mixer or channels along with apply image. I have tried calculations but find it easer to combine channel selections by hand. Please explain how you use calculations and for what reason.

Thanks Butch

[Swampy]

Highpass extraction? Me too, I'd love to know what you are doing.

[admirer]

Well i open a channel with the best overall contrast then copy it. Run a highpass filter on it this picks up all the edges and differences in lumin values, the smaller the radius for highpass the more accurate the mask+more laboursome. Of course the greater the radius the less accurate+less work.
Next apply a levels adjustment to the picture bringing in the black and white slider into near the middle until you get a kind of pencil drawing. here you will find that all your edges contrast quite well either black on white or vise versa. Keep the edges that have white on the bit you want to keep as they are but if as it seems to always do you will have some sections where the inside edge is black. For the Black inside bits just lasso around and invert.
From here it is just a case of lasso the inside of the image (away from the edges) and fill with white. Do the same for the outside and fill with black.
From here its just a case of getting a nice soft brush at medium opp set to overlay to define the edges.
Hope this helps.
I would do a video tut but i cant find a free screen recorder (im sooo cheap).

Calculations are not so easy to describe.

[admirer]

Ohhh Forgot to add.
Using arbitrary maps can also be quite effective but not so accurate.

[Swampy]

Admirer...

This would make a great tutorial. If you are on a PC there are several free (shareware) screen recorders available.

http://www.camstudio.org/

[manu_retoucher]

You can remove hairs using colour range very easily. Just make a rough selection around ladys hair, pick out the colours you want to remove & here you go. You have perfect selection of hairs. Also, you an make use of Softwares Like Corel Knockout & Extensis Mask Pro.