Anyone want to practice their masking skills?

[duwayne]

I took this picture of my granddaughter yesterday just before she got her first haircut. I guess this is what you get when you go down a plastic slide with nylon pants. Below is the link to the high resolution version from my Nikon D80.

http://oosterbaan.us/RetouchPro-003/mclaine-static.jpg

[lurch]

What an adorable photo!

[smak]

Tried. Failed.
How about a hat?

[smak]

This is all I could do.

[duwayne]

Every so often you get lucky. I tell my kids "if you can't take a good picture, take lots of pictures. I can make a good picture." but this one was just sitting there.

smak - that's really good. how did you do it?

[jannetie]

That's the most ADORABLE picture!!

[smak]

I copied the green channel, raised contrast with levels (tried High Pass filter; didn't help).
Mostly played around with Levels until the wisps of hair started to disappear. That's why the mask is so gray.

[pixelzombie]

definitely a challenge...

[bazza64]

I'm packing my grandkids in the car(with plastic pants) and heading for the nearest Macca's.
Great shot, enter it in some type of competition.

But your right Pixelzombie, definitely a challange.

Barry.

[Daviskw]

My shot

Butch

[0lBaldy]

Saw this on The Russell Brown Show and thought I would give it a try.

Extraction the WRONG WAY!

using Edge Highlighter tool ONLY...
cover everything you want extracted
check 'Force foreground' and select a gray 100,100,100
Click OK

Use History Brush to bring back lost details
Mask to clean edges and fix mistakes

[Daviskw]

Hi OlBaldy

looks like to got most of the hair...thanks I'll give it a try. What does the force foreground do...and why a gray color...why any color?

Butch

[0lBaldy]

Originally Posted by Daviskw

Hi OlBaldy
looks like to got most of the hair...thanks I'll give it a try. What does the force foreground do...and why a gray color...why any color?
Butch

Butch, I have absolutely no Idea... Tis Russell Browns Tip

Thought I had better put one up in black like everyone else
Just added a hue/sat layer and lowered the saturation in the RED channel with mask to hide everything but the hair

[duwayne]

Thanks Butch and O'Baldy for your creative ideas on a tough problem. I also wanted to say that I have learned a lot from your past posts. You both do very nice work. I couldn't find the tutorial on Russell Brown's site that you referenced. Any additional hints?

Here's my try. Started with the green channel as a base mask and used blending modes and Hue/Saturation adjustment layer. I tried so many different things I'm not sure what the final settings were.

[swarbees]

I used this method
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vJSroTLz8zk

but how do you get it to blend on a more complicated background??

[GREENBRIAR]

I just listened to Russell Brown's show where he has a Photoshop 7 tutorial on Advanced Masking. It deals with a cowboy who has wispy hair and extracting him from the background. It is very interesting how he does it.

[Tom K]

Hi duwayne;

Just had to tell you that I think that is a great shot.... Ain't Grandchildren
just the best..... Tom

[chillin]

I removed the white first & the rest just got simpler.
...there is a line that is not hair

[bazza64]

Hi Swarbees,
Good question!! I do a lot of cutting and pasting, and the methods described so far being used on this type of photo with a near plain background will usually do the job very well.

However, for more complicated backgrounds like I do e.g. composite landscapes where I have to extract every twig and leaf of a bush or tree, or where I have to seperate every strand of the models hair from a "busy" background I use 3rd party software called 'Vertus fluid mask' . I'd suggest you go to their webpage and have a look at the demo's. It's not cheap, if you plan to do a lot of this type of work, then it's worth it.

There is other software around like 'Akvis' etc., Iv'e tried most of them but I keep coming back to Vertus. (I used it in this post, took me approx 3min.)

Maybe there are some members out there that know of some 'freebies' or other ways to do complicated backgrounds with PS i'd sure like to know!!

Anyway Swarbees I hope this has helped.
Regards,
Barry.

[swarbees]

I have Akvis "Smartmask" but I couldn't get it to work even as good as the tutorial I posted. I'm sure I'm doing something wrong but the Akvis mask was pretty crappy.

[bazza64]

Hello again Swarbees,

Software like Akvis and Vertus take quite a while to get used to them, in the work that I do Vertus is still the best IMO, (very complicated backgrounds).Check out Vertus demo's on their web page.
I'm used to it now so i use it all the time for this type of work.

Regards,
Barry.