[Help] Masking Hair!

[jvr]

Hi All,

I did a search on the site and red all the posts about this topic, but didn't find a good technique that works with this picture.

They are headshots against pure white background. I need them to be cutout to work against colored backgrounds (saturated greens, blues, etc).

What would be your techniques for this images?

I also tried a couple plugins (MaskPro, Primatte) with no luck. I think this needs some layers trick.

Any suggestion will be much appreciated.
Thanks!

[Vernon]

Hi, jvr, and welcome to RP!

May I suggest this tutorial suggested by Swampy: Masking Hair It came up in search for tutorials of that nature...

[igot2pman]

I think in this case threshold would be a good selection tool.

Make a threshold where the white goes away, then copy and past it into a mask.

-Keven

[chillin]

In this case, I would remove the white first, then duplicate layer about 3 times & finish with bringing back white selectively as needed.

[jvr]

igot2pman could you explain me the threshold method? Never used it.

Chillin that's a good result. Could you explain how did you remove the white and what did you do with the 3 duplicated layers? Would love to see that .psd!

[igot2pman]

See screen shoot for more details

select all of the inverted threshold and copy it.
alt+click on the mask to show the mask
past the copy and the white should go away once all the other layers are hidden.

Hope it helps,
-Keven

[ray12]

There are times when cutsouts look fake at the edges no matter how hard you try. I usually try to shoot models like this on a gray background so I dont get that white "blow by" through the individual hairs...so using gray instead of the white helps if you are doing original shoots. We even prefer gray to chromakey green or blue because chromakey colors are so intense they sometimes splash back and contaminate the individual hair strands with their own color.

Fluid Mask (third party plugin $149) sometimes helps make hair selections better than mask pro, ultimatte or photoshop selections.

I have a full set of "hair edge brushes" that I use in this case sometimes to make hair repairs in spots that dont cut out well otherwise. These are hair strand accurate hair cutouts that are made into brushes that you dab over the bad hair edges...the brushes can be resized and warped into position and then you color the "Hair Strand Patch" to match the original hair color. Sometimes spot repair with perfect stranded edges is the only way to get convincing edges where they dont otherwise exist.

These perfect hair strand edges come from other photos that you might have... that cut out just perfectly...and you use these edges to repair other edges on bad photos. After a time you end up with a library of these kinds of things if you keep in mind to save good cutouts...to fill in the bad gaps in hair.

[chillin]

Chillin that's a good result. Could you explain how did you remove the white and what did you do with the 3 duplicated layers? Would love to see that .psd!

I used Mac's plug in remove white.
I made two PSD files (the long way ).
Here is the first PSD's animated layers capture.
...and here the second one.

[Damo77]

Have you tried simply pasting a new background on top of your photo, and trying some layer blend modes? You might be pleasantly surprised.

[DJSoulglo]

Uhm, it's some hair on a white bg...

A couple of methods come to mind:

Check your channels to see where the contrast is highest (Blue/Green probably) copy that channel, hit: Apple+a, Apple+C, Apple+V, Shift+Apple+F, then set blending mode to Colorn Burn and you should have an ALMOST complete mask

Draw a wide lassoo around the figure and the hair and use the Magic Wand tool to subtract the white. It's a terrible tool for selecting stuff, but it's awesome for what you DON'T want.

Select>Color Range, click on white, mess with the fuzziness.

That's the first things that come to mind

[jvr]

igot2pman thank you. I'll try with the threshold.

ray12 where did you get the set of hair brushes? I've got the Wacom tablet, but never used it to recreate hair.

[jvr]

chillin sorry but I can't see the blending modes you're using in the layers, or if they have opacity. Please let me know. Unfortunately I can't use the MAC's Remove White. It's for PC and I'm on a Mac, but I think I can remove white using the threshold technique or Mask Pro.

[Flora]

Is this what you are looking for?

Can I use your image for a short Tutorial on my technique?

(Attachment 1) my work flow
(Attachment 2) my result

[snook305]

Hello Flora, What exactly did you do from the Desaturated copy image layer to get to the mask.
Levels?Burning on Highlights?
Looks really great by the way. You retained just about all the hairs...
Get that tutorial out asap...:+]
Thanks
Snook

[lkroll]

White on black is about the easiest to mask of all challenges. For this particular one, I just used GIMP's Color to Alpha to turn white to transparent. Yes, it's a PNG with transparancies.

http://img4.imageshack.us/img4/4958/hairt.png

[chillin]

Originally Posted by jvr

chillin the MAC's Remove White. It's for PC and I'm on a Mac,Pro.

Here they say, it's for Mac too.

[jvr]

Flora that's a very good result. I just want to ask you what did you use to get the mask on the "Normal 100%" layer?

[Flora]

snook305, jvr,

thank you very much for your feedback!!!

The Tutorial on my technique, which of course includes how I got my Layer Mask, is here

jvr,
I hope you don't mind me using the image you posted here ... it was simply perfect for it!!!

[StormFX]

Flora, thank you very much for your tutorial. It's very useful and easy to implement. Perfect!

Best regards,

Steve

[jvr]

Thank you very much Flora!

Feel free to use the image and thanks for the detailed tutorial.

[ray12]

Originally Posted by jvr

igot2pman thank you. I'll try with the threshold.

ray12 where did you get the set of hair brushes? I've got the Wacom tablet, but never used it to recreate hair.

The "Hair Cutout Repair Brushes" are from a cutting technique we use here in NYC using models lit in a controled studio setup. This helps us to get perfect hair to work with.

We needed some hair repair tools to correct the edges of hair cutouts that looked damaged and frayed and smudged. This is especially so when the model is against a complex background. To help solve that problem we created high resolution shots of hair in the studio... so each strand would cut out perfectly... with no halo or fringing...then made up sets of standard Photoshop brushes from that. It takes quite a while to get the masking just right (we use masks and the defringe command alot)

To repair a section of damaged cutout hair ...you just pick the edging you need...stamp it on a new layer...warp it into place...and then color it to match. It covers over the bad places and makes them look natural again.

Its a real life saver for us when our cutout is important... but Phooshop just refuses cut out the hair cleanly. Most of the photoshop methods are somewhat OK for the easy hair...but 60% of the time you end up dissatisfied with the end results it seemed. The brushes are neutral to begin with... so they allow clean edge detail over any kind or color of background.

Below is an image of what the high-res brushes look like on my retouching desktop... just to give you an idea of what they look like.

[Flora]

StormFX, jvr,

thank you so much for your kind words!!!

jvr,

thank you for letting me use your picture!

ray12,

great set of brushes!! As you say, an absolute life saver for more complex background or for high precision work!!!

[jvr]

ray12,

I see in your brushes palette that there are a few "entire" haircuts. Do you think is it possible to make a brush with the haircut of the image I posted on this thread?
What would be the steps to convert this haircut in a brush?