Masking

[F, Calla & Luca]

I think Laurie was asking the other day about refining edges. I had seen a lesson on using channels but that was far too complex for me. But I found this tutorial that looked so easy. Of course it wasn't for me. But I spent part of this icy day working on it. For me I had to follow carefully, first opening the background and then the photo I wanted to make the mask from. When I tried to make the mask first it did not go well. I think the hardest thing we have to do is masking doodle hair. This attempt was not great but I thought it was good. It took a lot of experimenting and restarting. Ad as you know it's never done so sometime I may go back and do more. I hope you try it.

The tutorial: http://tv.adobe.com/watch/the-russell-brown-show/masking-basics-in-...

This fellow, Russell Brown has many tutorials on Adobe TV.

http://tv.adobe.com/

And here is the result of  my first cocerted effort.

The background

The backgroound  I removed Calla first.

And my final product

[DJ & Chance]

Great job!  I am impressed and I really like the nature background for this shot.   I'm going to try and get to the video this weekend.

[F, Calla & Luca]

Thanks, as always I see areas for fine tuning.

[Camilla and Darwin]

Nice job F!

[F, Calla & Luca]

Thanks C. What I would like to know is how you changed the background color for me, months ago. I tried hue and saturation and curves and that's how I meandered off into masks today : ) Can you explain? Thanks.

[Camilla and Darwin]

Yes, so I made a detailed selection of the dogs, copied them onto a new layer, then I made an hue/saturation adjustment layer UNDER that layer (so the adjustment layer was sandwiched between the background layer and the selection of C and L). I checked the little colorize box at the bottom right of the hue/saturation panel, then dragged the hue slider over to the turquoise and fiddled with the saturation until it was where I wanted it.

Here is a screen shot of the same process on a different image - I highlighted the key spots in red

[F, Calla & Luca]

Thanks Camilla. I thought you had some magic way, and I think there must be one, to avoid making a detailed selection or mask. Now that I know what work went into it thanks again. If I ever discover a secret way I'll let you know : )

[Camilla and Darwin]

Please do! Refine edge does a pretty good job, especially if it's a blurred background and there is a significant color difference. But it can definitely be tedious at times. I've spent a good 2 hours on a selection before (shudder)

[F, Calla & Luca]

The one above is a piece of cake, or is it candy, compared to a dog : ) But it just seems that with a solid background you should be amble to easily select that color and change it. I could swear I saw someone do something like that. Two hours--arghh. But that channels method is a nightmare. Of course, Dave Cross did it in a relative jiffy.

[Camilla and Darwin]

The tedious selections involve people on cluttered backgrounds usually, when I want to add a blur to isolate them.

[F, Calla & Luca]

This would work great on things with a hard edge but it was pretty good on the doodles when I added a duplicate layer and used my red beard technique on a few patches of stray hair that had turned greenish. It is quick.

Like this

[F, Calla & Luca]

And it was fantastic for the flowers in this photo. No masking is even better than masking : )

[F, Calla & Luca]

Of course I forgot the link

http://www.dummies.com/how-to/content/how-to-switch-colors-with-rep...