Welcome back to another very exciting tutorial here at the PhotoshopTrainingChannel.com.
My name is Jesus Ramirez and you can find me on Instagram @JRfromPTC.
In this example we're going to talk about the new Select and Mask Workspace in Photoshop.
This workspace replaces a previous Refine Edge and Refine Mask dialogue boxes in Photoshop.
And it allows us to visualize and select content in a new way. But before we get started with
that, I want to show you the layers that we're going to be working with.
We have this forest here, the background, and this foreground, this bear. So we're going
to mask out the bear and place him in the forest. So to access this new Select and Mask
workspace, you can click on any selection tool like the Marquee Tool, and then, click
on Select and Mask. And you'll notice that the Tools bar now has only a few tools and
the Properties panel on the right has some masking options for you to use. Notice the
Select and Mask here under the workspace.
Before we go any further, I want to press Cancel and I want to show you an easier way
to access this workspace. So instead of clicking on the Selection Tool and clicking on this
button, just remember the keyboard shortcut Ctrl Alt R, that's Command Option R on the
Mac, and it brings you directly into this workspace without having to click on any Selection
Tools. And the first thing we'll talk about is how you can use the tools that are found
in this Tool bar to make a selection. First of all, we have the Quick Selection Tool,
which you can get to by clicking on it or pressing the W key on the keyboard and you
can just click and drag to start making a selection.
Notice that the image is currently set to the Onion Skinning Mode where you only have
a transparency of 20%. That means that the selected items are going to be shown at 100%
and the deselected items are going to be shown at 20%. So we have the head partially selected,
which is why it looks opaque and the rest of the image is at 20% opacity. And if we
increase the Transparency to 100%, notice that the rest of the image disappears. So
this slider allows you to adjust the transparency so that you can make better selections. So,
in general, what you want to do is use the Quick Selection Tool to select the main areas
of your image, then toggle between the Brush Tool and the Lasso Tool to make corrections,
and more refined selections to specific areas.
So we have the Lasso Tool here and the Brush Tool here. We're going to talk about the Refine
Edge Tool a little later on. So let's focus first on the Brush Tool. This works just like
the regular Brush Tool. If you click and drag, you'll paint, essentially, with the white.
If you think of this as a mask, this is just like painting with white. You have the same
keyboard shortcuts, left bracket to decrease the size, right bracket key on the keyboard
to increase the size of that brush.
You can click on this down pointing arrow here and adjust the Size, Hardness, or Spacing,
or you can just simply right click anywhere on your image, and that same display comes
up, so we can adjust the Hardness all the way to 100% and you can see the hard edge
there. You can also click on the Lasso Tool, click and drag and make a selection, and it
fills in those areas. If we drag the transparency up to 100, now these are the selected areas.
I usually like keeping my transparency around 20%.
So now I'm going to press the W key to go back into the Quick Selection Tool and I'm
just going to increase the Brush Size by tapping on the right bracket key in the keyboard,
increasing the size, and continue selecting the bear. Notice that I accidentally selected
the rocks where he's standing. I can either click on the minus option here, or better
yet, hold Alt, Option on the Mac, and deselect the areas that I don't like. And I can release
the Alt key and continue selecting the areas that I do want to keep.
At this point, I can bring the transparency all the way up to 100%, just so I could see
how my selection is looking. If I need a different view, I can click on this down pointing arrow
and select Marching Ants Overlay, which is actually very similar to the Quick Mask Mode
on black. Right now, the background is not really showing black because the Opacity is
set to 50%, but I can increase that up to 100%, or bring that down if I want to. But
if I want to use on black, I probably would want it at 100%. On white is a similar effect
but, obviously, with a white background instead of black; black and white, which is essentially
the mask mode, and on layers right now, we're not going to see anything on the background
because the background layer is disabled.
So I'm going to go back into the Onion Skin Mode and I'm going to bring the Transparency
down just a little bit, maybe not all the way till 20% this time, maybe less now, since
I've already selected the major points of my bear. And I just realized that I'm missing
a spot here, so I'm going to press Z on the keyboard, I'm going to Zoom In, and I'm going
to press W for the Quick Selection Tool. I'm going to tap on the left bracket key on the
keyboard, hold Alt, Option on the Mac, to subtract from that selection. I'm going to
press Z again, then hold Alt, Option on the Mac and Zoom Out.
Now that I've selected the main areas of my image, I'm going to use the Edge Detection
Tool to remove the background and portions of the image that requires additional refinement,
such as the fur around the bear. So I'm going to click on the Refine Edge Brush, then I'm
just going to click and drag around the edge of the bear to deselect the background around
the fur, and notice I'm going fairly quickly here.
What I'm going to do now is bring the Transparency back to 100 so we can see what we got. And
I'm, actually, going to use the black and white because I really want to see what the
mask is looking like. At this point, I can just click on the Brush Tool, and I'm just
going to paint using the plus sign there, which is essentially the white. The brush
is a little hard so I'm just going to right click and bring the Hardness down, and continue
painting on the areas that I know that I'm going to want to keep.
Then I'm going to hold Alt and just remove the areas that I know I don't want to keep.
I'm going to zoom in and continue removing these areas. I'm still holding Alt to remove.
I'm going to fit everything to screen just so we can see what we got. And just as a side
note, if you're using the Paintbrush and instead of using the Add to Selection, you're using
Subtract from Selection, if you want to go back into the Add to Selection, you can hold
Shift and it adds. So if you want to Subtract to Selection and you hold Alt, nothing will
happen. So hold Shift to Add to a Selection. But I usually like staying on the Add to Selection,
and then, hold Alt to Subtract.
So now that we've refined the selection, I want to go into the On White view. I want
to use some Global Refinements. So, in some cases, you may want to smooth your selection.
In this case, I don't think it's necessary, so I'm just going to leave it at zero. You
can Feather it, Contrast, or Shift the edge. I want to Shift the Edge and I want to do
negative values just to remove that outline that we had around the bear.
And, actually, now that the bear is active, I'm noticing that I'm missing a little piece
here, so I'm just going to click on the Brush Tool and just add to the selection in this
area here. You can also press X on the keyboard to disable the views, but notice what happened
here. I started type in X, so in a way I'm kind of glad that happened, and I'm just going
to get out of that and Photoshop is going to tell me that's an invalid value, and that's
true, it is. But if I just press Enter on the keyboard, I'm going to exit out of that,
and if I press X this time, I get to see the original. So I can just toggle between the
original and the masked area, just to see if I'm missing a piece. I'm missing a piece
here actually, so I'm just going to paint that back in. And I'm missing another piece
here. Okay and the bear is looking pretty good. Before we press OK, I just want to mention
that these controls here are very similar to what the Refine Edge and Refine Mask used
to be, so we have the Edge Detection here with the Smart Radius. We have the same sliders.
We have the Output Settings as well and, also, the Decontaminate Colors.
And all these options are essentially the same as to what you had with the Refine Edge.
There's also a lot of Reset button here, in case you need it, and a Sample All Layers
checkbox here, in case the object you're trying to select is made up of different layers or
something like that. So I'm going to uncheck this for now and I'm going to press OK. Photoshop
then creates a mask. If I need to go back, I can click on the Layer Mask, and then, click
on Select and Mask here on the Properties panel or you can press Ctrl Alt R, Command
Option R, and you're back.
All right, now that I made this mask, I can enable the forest. I can click on the layer,
press V on the keyboard, move my bear and place him accordingly, right about here, and
maybe scale him down a little bit, so I'm going to click on the pivot point, drag it
down to his foot. That's where I want him standing, hold Alt Shift, Option Shift on
the Mac, and scale in proportion by clicking and dragging on that corner handle. Position
him again and press Enter. And what I'm going to do now is I'm going to Zoom In so you could
see the edge. Notice what good of a job this feature did masking out the fur on this bear,
as you can see in this area. So it looks fairly convincing. If you notice any mistakes like
I'm seeing here, you can just paint with white on the mask. You don't have to go back into
the Refine and Mask Workspace, so I'm just going to paint with white here to fill that
part in.
Now, if I wasn't explaining what all those features were, and how all the tools work,
then I probably would have completed this project in half the time. I was a big fan
of the Refine Edge and Refine Mask, but I actually like the Select and Mask a lot more.
It's more useful. The algorithm for making selections is better. And once again, I'm
going to zoom in and you can see the good job that did here on the fur around
the bear.
And that's pretty much it. Let me know what you think about this feature.
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