One of the things I ‘ve been asked to explain in recent times is as complex and irregular select items like hair . Although we had seen a long tutorial on selections using channels, PhotoShop CS5 brought in his new tool “Refining Mask“Which will save much time and leave us breathless with the results.
Before starting the tutorial I want to thank AgustinaWho through him to the fact that people Adobe send me the Adobe Master Collection.
The images used in this tutorial are stock.xchng:
Now let us start :
As you see in the image, the model has hair that long ago would have been a headache. What then is try to change the background keeping the model in the foreground, with all his hair intact.
1. Making the selection
We begin by making a selection of character with the tool that makes us feel more comfortable. It may be the pen, the polygonal lasso or any other form . Before you begin, bear in mind to leave at 1 or 2 px on “Feather“Located at the top once you select the selection tool (forgive the redundancy). This will make our selection is not hard, but its completion is softer. Later we modify it, but if we got used from the start … better.
When we get to the hair , will make a quick selection of the area ( as shown in Figure 2 ), without elaborating .
2. Masks, your best ally
The title of this item says it all. have often heard work non-destructively . The masks allow just that , cropping an image (in this case ) without affecting the original photo. For those just starting , I suggest this tutorial on masks.
Once we go to the selection panelMasks“Which may find it right with the typical symbol of the mask 
or if not found, from the main menu Window> Mask we can open the panel.
While the images are in English (a gift horse in the teeth look it ) I think everyone can follow the tutorial.
What we see here is the panel in question, from where we have the possibility to apply the mask to the selection, make a vector mask and modify certain parameters of the same (among whom were the aforementioned “Feather“).
With a red circle I marked the option where we will apply the mask to the selection. Once this is done automatically hide what we have left out, leaving the selection drawn from its background.
Values Density and Feather leave it as is because we are interested in this tutorial is “Edge Mask” … define the edge of the mask.
3. Time of magic!
Here ‘s the kicker . We will go to the “Edge Mask” (edge of the mask ) in the Masks panel where we see the following window .
In this window mask we can work our will. Initially we found the box Display Mode, Where we can choose several options. But in this case use the image and highlighting best hair removal .
In the image I marked three factors to take into account ( the rest is just a matter of taste … each image is a world apart and not always all work the same way.) The first is the edge detection range. It is always good to add a faint radio if the image has a complex background as much radio do we take other objects and leave nothing radio to mask details of the object . Therefore , 0.5 px is a good number for this occasion.
On the other hand is the option “Decontaminate colors. Many times the edges of objects takes some background color or environment , either by illumination of the photograph , the quality of it, and so on. This will make if the hair is blond and in this case, it does not leak green of the trees or sky blue . PhotoShop will attempt to remove the object with its original color .
Finally, find the Brush as the tool to refine the edges. How you use is very simple, we pass the Brush on the edge of the hair, trying to find out what the mask does not show . If the brush size is small , remember that at the top is the option to change it.
Thus, we will see that the hair brush is detected .
If during this step we see that the brush shows some other details that do not want, then press the Alt key and paint what we are doing is deleting the unwanted portion .
Once we have done all the work , we give OK and see how our image has improved the edge of his mask:
Just try it with a background subtraction .
4. Finishing touches
We will try to blur a background as in the original image. For this we take the image of the landscape and we , obviously, in a layer below the mask model .
In this particular case , I will run a little to the model, as it cuts the legs was not our main concern in this image fits the foot.
As you can see, the results of this new feature of Photoshop CS5 are simply fantastic. Just look at the tips of the hair to realize this.
To complete the picture somehow, have become the image of the landscape for Smart Filters (So as to continue with a composition nondestructively) and have applied a Gaussian Blur of 10px .
The same process I did with the model. Only this time the Gaussian blur 1.5px was and I took the mask that gives the intelligent filter to hide all the blur ( painted black mask ) and only apply the blur to the tip of the hair, to merge but the image. A small detail for retailers.
Finally , using the yellow hair and grass in the background , create an adjustment layer Hue / Saturation, Tick the box “Colorize“And I played a bit with the settings until you reach a tone zepia . In the layer blending mode changed to Soft Light and ready … finished the job.
I hope you liked the tutorial and to facilitate the daily work.
Link | Tutorial sobre selecciones complejas con Photoshop CS5