Enlighten me up

[Tradexcel Content]

Hey,
Can you plz show me the easier ways to select a hairy or flying hair image with pen tool?

[chandrika]

Zoom right in so that the fine lines are thick enough and then using the pen tool, click at short intervals around the outline you want to select . Then once you have created a path with the pen tool, in the path options (tab the layers box to find path options) at the bottom of the path options is a button you click to make the path a selection.

[chandrika]

Another option..if the reason you want to select the hair is to cut it out...is to use the filter>>extract tool

Tick the "smart highlighting" box and zoom in, then trace round the edges with a reasonable sized brush. Once you have highlighted the outline, fill it and then click preview and use the two clean up brushes to get the edges clean, the lower one cleans up any ragged edges, the top one kind of erases larger errors, then click ok and the cut out image will open in PS.

[Tradexcel Content]

Chandrika,
Thanks for your info!
I usually zoom in to use pen tool to remove such background. Extract filter is good to use. But can you show me the way to remove hairy background with brush tool and eraser tool after doing clipping path by pen tool?

[chandrika]

I am not sure I get what you mean exactly, can you post the image?...

If you have selected the hair, by making the clipping path and converting to a selection, then you can either just set the background color to whatever you like and cut or erase with the eraser...or set the foreground color and paint over with the brush.

If your clipping path is selecting the area you want to stay the same...then inverse the selection to select the area you want to change.

[Tradexcel Content]

Hi Chandrika,
I wanted to learn only for images having complex (hairy, flying hair feather like) images. Can you shoe me that up?

[chandrika]

Ok I think I can shoe you that up but let me get this straight.. do you want to remove the background, leaving the hairy, flying hair feather like images intact, or do you have an image with hairy, flying hair feather like bits that you want to remove?

[chandrika]

You know if it is something to save time doing this that you are looking for, there is a plugin for photoshop called Mask Pro 4
http://www.ononesoftware.com/detail.php?prodLine_id=4

There is a free trial available there...and it specifically mentions problems with very fine complex stuff like hair and smoke...I have a feeling that any usual way of cutting out and erasing such stuff, although possible, will always be very time consuming to do a good job.

[chandrika]

Also to do it yourself using rgb masks and the dodge burn tool, there is a tutorial that shows people with fine hair being taken out the background and put on another very effectively.

http://www.graphic-design.com/Photos...nds/index.html

[chandrika]

It will be difficult using the pen, brush or erase tool to do that, because the image resolution is low, so zooming in it is quite pixellated and the color of the hair to the background is not contrasting much at all.

Painstakingly you could try...

1)make a duplicate layer of the image so it is separate from the background.
2) Create a new layer below the duplicate layer and fill with white
3) set the background color to white
4)With the images duplicate layer selected, choose the eraser tool and choose a small size...1pixel only, to painstakingly erase away around the outline. There is also a magic eraser which may help a little in some places...just mess about with its settings.

I still think with such an image messing about with the channels to improve the contrast and make a mask would be better, as described in that tutorial link I put.

But better altogetherwould be if you could get a better resolution pic if you have one.