Hi.
Welcome back to the photoshoptrainingchannel.com, I'm Jesús Ramirez.
In this video, I'm going to show you an efficient way of saving and applying selections in Photoshop.
This technique is very useful when compositing or when you're working on a project that requires
you to apply several selections multiple times.
Instead of using the Save Selection and Load Selection commands, I'm going to reveal keyboard
shortcuts that will allow you to instantly call up predefined selections.
For this tutorial, I will use a simplified version of a project file that I use for a
written tutorial for the Adobe Create Magazine.
If you want to see how this paint splatter effect was created, then check out the tutorial
on the Adobe Create Magazine.
I'll place a link right below under the description.
In this video, we're not going to focus on the final result.
Instead, we're going to focus on the selection in masking techniques that will allow you
to create faster in Photoshop.
Okay, let's get started.
So this is the document that I'm going to work with.
It contains a background, a runner and five paint splatters.
And the first step is to make a selection out of your main subject.
I'm going to disable the Layer Mask for now.
You can disable a Layer Mask by holding Shift and clicking on the Layer Mask thumbnail.
And I'll show you how you can make a selection.
So you can make a selection in a few different ways.
First, you can select the Quick Selection tool
and click and drag around your main subject to select them.
Or you can make sure that your Layer is selected and then go into the Select Subject button
while the Quick Selection tool is active.
And that will use Adobe Sensei, which is Photoshop's artificial intelligence.
Which means that Photoshop will use machine learning technology to determine what the
main subject is and it will create a selection around it.
It's a pretty good selection, but it's not perfect.
There's a few imperfections.
Let me zoom in to his hands so you can see how it missed the part in between his fingers
and let me show you how to fix it.
You can press the Q key on the keyboard to enable the Quick Mask mode.
This applies a red overlay over the areas that are not selected so it makes it easy
for you to see you what you missed.
So to fix these areas all you need to do is press the B key on the keyboard for the Brush tool.
You can use the Right and Left Bracket keys on the keyboard which are next to the letter
P to reduce or increase the size of the brush accordingly.
And then with black as your foreground color, you can just paint
in the areas that you want to deselect.
When you press Q again, notice how the selection now matches what you painted over and you
can just keep doing that accordingly.
One thing I do want to point out is that if you're working in an area like this one where
the overlay is very similar in color to the object you're trying to select, it might get
a little confusing.
So you might want to change the color of the overlay.
To do so you can double-click on the Quick Mask icon, which is here just below the Foreground
and Background Color.
And you enable the Quick Mask Options window and you can click on the color to bring up
the color picker and you can switch the color to maybe green and press Okay.
Press Okay one more time.
And now if you go back into the Quick Mask mode by pressing Q, you'll see that the overlay
is green and you can continue painting accordingly.
If I press Q again, you'll see that those changes were applied and then you can click
on the Layer Mask icon to create a mask based on the selection.
Obviously, we're not going to use this selection because I already spent some time fine-tuning
and refining a selection and created this mask out of it.
So this is what we're going to use.
I'll double-click on the Hand tool to fit the image to screen.
And now we're going to focus on creating and making selections, which is really important
for this technique.
So I'll start by making a selection out of my Layer Mask.
I'll press Ctrl on Windows, Command in the Mac and click on the Layer Mask thumbnail.
That loads the mask as a selection.
Then I'm going to go into the Channels panel.
If you don't see it, you can go into Window and Channels.
And from here I'm going to create a new channel by clicking on a New Channel icon and I'm
going to fill with white.
White is currently my background color so I can press Ctrl Backspace on Windows Command
Delete on the Mac to fill with the background color, which is white.
Then I'm going to rename this channel and I'll call it Body.
And this is how you save selections by converting them into channels.
Next, we're going to save two more selections.
We will start with the arm.
To do so I'm going to select the Lasso tool from the toolbar.
Then I'm going to subtract from the selection by holding Alt on Windows, Option in the Mac
and click and drag around his entire body except his arm to deselect.
So now I have a selection to surround his arm.
Then I'll create a new channel.
I'll call it Arm and I'll fill it with white, Ctrl Backspace on Windows, Command Delete
on the Mac.
And what I'm going to do now is show you a really cool trick.
You probably are noticing that to the right of these Channels we have a keyboard key and
a number.
This is actually a keyboard shortcut that allows us to select that particular channel.
For example; if I press Ctrl 3, I'll select the Red channel; Ctrl 4, the Green channel;
Ctrl 5, the Blue channel; Ctrl 6, the Body channel; and Ctrl 7 the Arm channel, which
is pretty cool.
But if you add one more key to that keyboard shortcut, you'll be able to load a channel
as a selection.
For example, if you press Ctrl Alt and the number six, you'll make a selection out of
the runner's body.
If you press Ctrl Alt 7, you will make a selection out of the arm.
And by the way that's Command Option and the number on the Mac.
So this is going to be the powerful and efficient technique that's going to help us create masks
and selections really quickly when compositing.
What I'm going to do next is press Ctrl Alt 6 to load the body as a selection.
And I'm going to deselect everything but his leg.
Then with the selection active, I'm going to create a new channel and fill it with white,
Ctrl Backspace and I'll call this channel Leg.
What I'm going to do now is press Ctrl D, Command D to deselect.
I'll click on RGB and I'll go back into my Layers panel.
Next, I'm going to start compositing and whenever I need any one of those selections I'm going
to use a keyboard shortcut to bring it up, Ctrl Alt 6 for the body, Ctrl Alt 7 for the
arm, or Ctrl Alt 8 for the leg.
So for this first splatter Layer, I'm going to enable it and since I want his arm to cover
the splatter to make it seem as if he's behind his arm, all I need to do is press Ctrl Alt
and the number seven and that makes a selection around his arm.
And then I can create an inverted Layer Mask by clicking on the Layer Mask icon while holding
the Alt key on Windows.
That's the Option key in the Mac.
And that creates that effect that you see there.
I'm going to undo that just to show you the long way of doing it so you can see the value
of this technique.
If I wanted to do the same thing without using the keyboard shortcuts, I want you to go into
the Channels panel, hold Ctrl, then click on the Channel thumbnail to load it as a selection.
Go back into the Layers panel and then click on the Layer Mask icon.
And finally press Ctrl I, Command I to invert the selection.
So as you can see by using these keyboard shortcuts, you are much more efficient and
faster when compositing and using Layer Mask.
Let me show you a couple more examples.
I'm going to enable this Layer, and in this case, I want to make it seem as if the paint
is behind his entire body.
So I'll press Ctrl Alt and the number six to load his entire body as a selection.
Then I'll hold Alt on Windows, Option in the Mac and click on the Layer Mask icon to create
an inverted Layer Mask.
Then I'll enable splatter number four.
This time I want his leg to cover this splatter.
So I'll press Ctrl Alt and the number eight to load the leg as a selection.
And again I'll create an inverted Layer Mask, like so.
Then I'll enable splatter number five and this time I don't need to use any of my predefined
selections.
I can just create a new Layer Mask and I can paint to blend in the pixels onto his body.
I'm going to tap on the Right Bracket key on the keyboard to increase the size of my
brush and I'm just going to paint like so to remove that edge and just blend those pixels
together, like so.
And I can do the same thing on splatter number one.
I can blend these pixels together just to make it more realistic.
Like I said before, the final outcome is not important for today's video.
Focus on learning the technique and apply it to your own projects.
Also, in this tutorial, I only have five paint splatters, but I'm sure that you can already
see the power of this technique if I had a few dozen more.
By the way, if you want to learn more cool tricks on masking and selections, then check
out my YouTube playlist where I have almost 20 videos that deal with masking, cutouts,
and selections, check it out.
I'll place a link right below under the description.
Also, if this is your first time at the Photoshop Training Channel, then don't forget to click
on that Subscribe and Notification button.
Thank you so much for watching.
I'll talk to you again in the next video.