turning high frequency into a mask

[slipchuck Member Find all posts View Profile Close slipchuck]

Is there a way of using the high frequency of frequency separation as a mask? I would like to use the mask to cut out the subject as well as the hair using the high frequency layer.
Hope this makes sense

Randy

[Tulack Senior Member Find all posts View Profile Close Tulack]

Re: turning high frequency into a mask

Is there a way of using the high frequency of frequency separation as a mask? I would like to use the mask to cut out the subject as well as the hair using the high frequency layer.
Hope this makes sense

Randy

You can use anything as a mask, it's just a bad idea to use FS.

[klev Senior Member Find all posts View Profile Close klev]

Re: turning high frequency into a mask

Edit: TLDR; Partly automated hair selection is complex and lacks truly robust methods using only the tools available in photoshop.

That is not a usable method. First the gamma encoding used in typical RGB profiles is problematic here, and you have no suitable way to get rid of that. Converting to a different color space won't do anything for you.

(This is a really rough explanation. It certainly contains some errors, at least errors of omission. )

The other problem is based on the way this is constructed. It's typical to use gaussian blur, so with respect to the color space, you generate something which is normally distributed when examining the image across any local minimum or maximum value. Local maxima and minima here are just pixels that are brighter or darker than any neighboring pixel. The high frequency layer is equivalent to taking the image and subtracting its normally distributed component. This implies to someone looking at the two images that significant residual deviations would indicate strong edges.

The strong edges thing holds to some degree, but photoshop's methods won't help you set the appropriate things to high and low. Even outside of photoshop this isn't considered to be an ideal method at all. If you tried to use the high frequency layer, it would require the use of propagation methods of edge finding, which aren't really available in photoshop. The other types would require significant modification. Even then it won't necessarily work well, because normal distributions are not an ideal way of describing image patterns.

For hair, use a brush. Tune the hardness. Paint in flyaways, make color corrections, and fill gaps as necessary. The forum gets a pretty wide range of users, but if you don't understand this, then trust me, it's a bad idea .

[Emily Watson Member Find all posts View Profile Close Emily Watson]

Re: turning high frequency into a mask

The idea of frequency separation is to make a distinction between the color and texture of an image. This separation will give us the space to correct both element individually. You can create a mask on anything in Photoshop. High frequent details can be selected through luminent (Alt + Cntrl +2).But in my opinion the idea of creating a mask in this way will have same effect where in you would be achieving through mid toned luminent mask .