Photoshop Combination of Tools, Page 2
Next I switch to the pen tool and draw a rough line around the girls arms and
sleeves. For a more detailed explanation of using the pen tool, see the butterfly
example.
After the rough outline is drawn, the curves are refined with the convert anchor
point tool.
The path is then converted to a selection using the same method that was used in the butterfly example.
The the selection is filled with white. (Edit > Fill)
Now we'll need to do another levels adjustment to shift the remaining dark gray areas to 100% black. But we don't want to effect the hair area because it has shades of gray we need to keep. So, first we'll lasso a loose selection around the hair, then invert the selection.
With the inverted selection, we can go to Image > Adjust > Levels and move the left slider in until the surrounding dark gray becomes completely black. We now have a selection mask saved as an alpha channel!
Click the RGB channel in the channels palette to return the view to the full color image. Next go to Selections > Load Selection. In the dialog box, choose the Alpha 1 channel as the source and click OK.
Here you can see the selection marquee around the image.
As always, I switch to quick mask mode to have a look at the selection mask. You can learn more about quick mask mode on page two of the leaf example.
 While
in quick mask mode, I usually apply a half-pixel gaussian blur just to soften
the mask the slightest bit. |
Next I switch back to selection mode, invert the selection and delete the background.
Here is the final image with a new background.
I hope this series of tutorials showed you that there's never one way to approach a problem. Sometimes it takes creative thinking and a combination of techniques, but with practice and a wide variety of tools I'm confident that anyone can handle even the toughest of background removing challenges.
Removing the Background > Adobe Photoshop
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Some images from Nova Development's Art Explosion 600,000.
