Hair - masking/flyaways etc

[Dutch Rich]

Ant, why did you have to bring crazy ass Dan Margulis into a hair masking conversation.
I love the man, we're practically neighbors but come on.
When will they put Minimum and Maximum in one dialog box cause I still can't figure out which to choose. Anybody with me, lol.
Martin Evening shows good techniques that have worked for me at times. Honestly there is no formula. Once had to mask out a tiger head that was shot on non photo blue. The spill was just overwhelming, I can't put in words what tools, blending modes, channels and adjustment layers where used but nobody ever questioned the integrity of that head. It's on the website. My motto is "whatever it takes". As an artist, the focus should always be knowing your tool. I know many different ways to do one individual thing and I will pick one according to my mood of the day and my level of boredom. It's like picking your clothes in the morning!!! Btw I've thrown many cats out of my studio asking me if there was a 2 filter method to do skin.
Rembrandt is King

[Rhasval]

Originally Posted by CaptainHook

Chris, there was talk of you elaborating on using gradient maps for masks in the other
thread. Do you have time to do that? Past anything obvious, i'm curious to see
how you may use them creatively that gives an advantage to other channel operations.

Anyone care to expand on methods for integration?

I’m also looking forward to Chris's tutorial on using gradient maps for masks.

For me, it's perfect to expand the thread to integration methods, like we all said before the masking depends a lot of the integration process to apply it properly.

Originally Posted by Ant

This is how I do it. I've never utilized the min or max filter.

Ant, Can you explain why max and min is not good for you to mask? I do use curves or levels to make or adjust the masks but some time max and min work nice for me to do adjustments.

[Rhasval]

Originally Posted by Dutch Rich

....
When will they put Minimum and Maximum in one dialog box cause I still can't figure out which to choose. Anybody with me, lol.
....
Rembrandt is King

You are right Richard, it will be great, Max & min in one dialog box. Until then I’ll still thinking of max & min as follows:
Max = expands the mask = whites grow
Min = contracts the mask = blacks grow.
lol..

Rembrandt is not the only king, there are many others… Velazquez, Goya, Dali, Picasso…lol.

[Dutch Rich]

There can only be one king of Spain Rhas, no more civil wars please.

[Ant]

Originally Posted by Rhasval

Ant, Can you explain why max and min is not good for you to mask? I do use curves or levels to make or adjust the masks but some time max and min work nice for me to do adjustments.

I've just only used them once or twice. I just don't, it's not that they are bad or good, I've no experience. Maybe next time I'm bored.

Rich, I've never read a Margulis, Eisman or what-have-you book, so it really doesn't matter. Reading be bad. Most of them, in my limited experience have the aesthetics of a Sears portrait studio; that's why they write books and have oddball opinions that rarely translate to the real world.

I can't wait until we go back to that androgynous look and everyone has a shaved head.

[Dutch Rich]

Yeah Eisman (.....fill in expletive), but remember not everyone has had the entry ways that we had.
Sears is the real world not Harpers Bazaar. Terry Richardson being the exception.
Margulis is special however. Can aesthetic be taught? I'm not sure but technique certainly can.

[CaptainHook]

Originally Posted by Ant

I can't wait until we go back to that androgynous look

Kids on myspace and in bands are already there and have been for
a couple of years. Who can tell the difference between a guy and
a girl on there anymore?

[pixelzombie]

and here i'm thinking of shaving my head, i think you guys may have talked me out of it..at least until i get my tattoo...

[cricket1961]

Ummm... Have you guys taken a look at my pic recently?

I very rarely use the tools minimize and maximize. They are good tools to use and there is a great use for them with masking.
I much rather use a simple blur and tighten it with curves or levels.

Chris

[kyo]

Originally Posted by Ant

I've yet to see an external software or plug in really make much difference.

Give the one I mentioned a shot, free demo. I've pulled fireworks out of the sky, and changed a background behind a transparent wedding gown.. it's quite effective. Perfect? not every time in every situation, but it's a whole lot faster than most methods in many cases. If nothing else, it gets you real close real fast.

With hair, like you said.. knowing what to do with it once you've got it mask out is really more important. A perfect mask doesn't necessarily equal a perfect image.

I use to do all sorts of insane channel masking (still do) and such, calculations, etc. but I can avoid a lot of that now. I learned a lot from Margulis so I tend to take a really seemingly odd approach to a lot of things but I mostly use those techniques for color corrections now.

Kyle

[pixel_monkey]

Ha...who needs hair. I've been shaving my head for more than 8 years now. It started back in college when I was on the burger king diet and couldn't afford the barber shop and hair products. (Yes, I was that starving artist/student poor.) Now it's become my regular routine.

Anyway, I do want to see Adobe put min and max in one dialog box. It'll be even better if they put in a preview window and a fade slider. They're good for tightening masks for products or body parts, but not so good on hair. I find that even at the smallest radius of 1 pixel is still too much. 100% of the time I have to fade it and add blur.

PZ, Make sure you enjoy that moment if this is going to be your first time doing it, 'cause it won't feel the same again second time around. I can still remember that my head was so clear and I felt like that I had a third eye...or maybe I was on something back then...haha.

[Rhasval]

Originally Posted by Dutch Rich

There can only be one king of Spain Rhas, no more civil wars please.

Lol You are right, we have enough with the king we already have. Let’s call them just genius. lol


Getting back to masking…

Originally Posted by cricket1961

...

I very rarely use the tools minimize and maximize. They are good tools to use and there is a great use for them with masking.
I much rather use a simple blur and tighten it with curves or levels.

Chris

Chris, I do use max & min a lot. I’ll try to explain how. Since max & min expand white or black pixels without affecting the amount of grey pixels in between. I use Max & Min to take the black or white where I want them to be. This only works when you have enough space to expand or contact the mask, other ways I use gauss blur + levels or curves to give the amount of blur(Opacity) I want on the edges. It is just the way I'm used to work.

I did a mini tutorial so people can see what I’m talking about and how it works.

Originally Posted by pixel_monkey

Ha...who needs hair. I've been shaving my head for more than 8 years now. It started back in college when I was on the burger king diet and couldn't afford the barber shop and hair products. (Yes, I was that starving artist/student poor.) Now it's become my regular routine.

Anyway, I do want to see Adobe put min and max in one dialog box. It'll be even better if they put in a preview window and a fade slider. They're good for tightening masks for products or body parts, but not so good on hair. I find that even at the smallest radius of 1 pixel is still too much. 100% of the time I have to fade it and add blur.

...

Ha…I still have a lot of hair, I’m a tough pic to mask …haha

I agree with you, it is true that max & min don’t work good on masks with tine hairs, I think it is because Max & min just make them thicker or thinner. In those cases I use levels or curves.

[Markzebra]

Yes max and min are useful for just that.. contracting and expanding a mask crudely - they do create blocking artifacts, and generally this is not useful for hair or anything where subtlty is required. I mentioned them only because the word choking usually means that to me.

Generally a point that Ive been repeating for years is that its wrong to assume you can always mask hair, and that its just a question of accuracy, mainly because its outer edges are so fine that they are transparent and reflect the background. Every book you will read will not mention this.

[cricket1961]

Rhasval

Sure there are times to use them. I agree. But if there are corners or curves there will be distortions on the mask, as well as the blocking that Mark mentions.
Plus I have found that one would still need to blur the mask for hair to enable proper blending of the background it is going on.
But I have yet to find an instance where it has been accurate enough. But that could just be the type of work I am doing.

Chris

[Rhasval]

Ok, Mark and Chris, I’ll watch out for those distortions and blocking. Thanks for the information.

One thing I found it useful is for light effect around or inside the edges of an objects, persons, …etc, where you don’t need a big accurate. But it’s true that all this can be done just with curves and levels.