Hey guys, welcome back for another very exciting tutorial here at the Photoshoptrainingchannel.com.
My name is Jesus Ramirez. You can find me on Twitter @JRfromPTC.
In this tutorial, we'll look at two different techniques to remove hair from its background.
The first technique will work with almost every version of Photoshop, while the second
will only work if you have Photoshop CS5 or newer. For this tutorial, I wanted a challenge.
I was looking for an Image of a person who had some wild, frizzy hair. I, definitely,
didn't want to make this easy for you guys. The hair in this image does not seem it will
be easy to mask, but as you will see in this tutorial, this is not the case. If you follow
along, you'll soon be masking hair like nobody's business. And before you get started, you
might want to pause the video and head over to my website, Photoshoptrainingchannel.com,
if you're not already there, and download the tutorial files so you can follow along.
Okay, guys, so I'll be showing you two different techniques of Masking Out hair. The first
technique is going to be applicable to pretty much all versions of Photoshop. The second
will require Photoshop CS5 or newer. So, let me show you the first technique.
We have the image of this woman here and we have a background. So this is the background
we're trying to place her in. As you can see, this is not an easy job, there's a lot of
strands of hair going all over the place, so it's going to take a little bit of work.
But don't worry, it's not that hard to get this woman into the background, and so before
we get started, we're going to duplicate the woman layer and that's because we're going
to use one layer per technique. So I'm just going to create on the woman layer and press
Ctrl J, that's Command J on the Mac, to duplicate that layer. And then, we're going to talk
a little bit about channels, in case you're not familiar with them, since we will be using
them for the first part of the tutorial.
So, each RGB Image is created with three channelsóthe Red channel, Green channel, and Blue channel.
And without going into too much detail, these three channels help create the final RGB Image,
and these channels can also be used as Selections. So if I press Ctrl or Command on my keyboard
and click on any of these channel icons, you'll load a Selection. And just like with Layer
Mask, white are the opaque pixels and black are the invisible pixels.
So I made a Selection on this Blue channel. I'm going to go back into the Layers panel,
and by the way, this is not really part of the Masking Out process. I just want to explain
to you how channels work. So I want to Create a New Layer and I'm just going to fill it
with black, and I'm going to shut off the visibility to the Layer just so you can see
how that works. I'm going to press Ctrl D, Command D, to Deselect the Selection, and
you'll see that there's black pixels and no pixels here; that's because in the--
Actually, I got to bring back this woman so we can see the channels, that's because in
the Blue channel, this section was white, which means the pixels are going to show,
or, actually, gray, which is why it's self-painted black. And this area here is black, which
means it's going to hide the pixels. So, that's why we get that result there, and to see it
more clearly, I'm going to press Ctrl J a couple of times, just so you can see how it's,
in fact, black here, and invisible here.
So now that we know that, we're going to use the channels to select the hair. So, in your
image, select the channel that's got more contrast between the hair and the background.
In this case, it's the Blue channel, so I'm going to duplicate that channel by Clicking
and Dragging that over to the New Channel iconóthis icon here. So, now, I can work
on this icon. You never want to work on the original Red, Green, or Blue channels. You
just want to duplicate them.
Now that I have it duplicated, I know that I don't want to select this white area. I
want to select the black pixels. So I'm going to turn the black pixels white and the white
pixels black. To do that, I'm simply going to press Ctrl I, that's Command I on the Mac.
So now, we can see that we can select around these white pixels here. But these pixels
are too light, so we have to darken those up and we also, obviously, want to keep the
face, so we got to make this white. The easiest way to do that is by grabbing the Lasso Tool.
You can just press L on the keyboard if you like, and just go around this area here, and
we can fill that with white. And I'm going to press Ctrl D, Command D to Deselect. I'm
going to press B on the keyboard for my Brush Tool and I'm going to paint with white around
the shoulder here and the other shoulder, and I'm not going to take too much time since
we're mostly worried about the hair, of course.
Okay, so now that I painted everything inside of here white, I have to turn everything in
the outside black. The easiest way to do that is by going into Image, Adjustment, Levels,
and I can bring in the levels to the right, like so, making these pixels darker. Now,
you see these strands of hair here? You want to make sure that you don't go too far and
get rid of them. You got to find that balance, so, maybe, somewhere around here, so you can
still kind of see them. We still have the ones on the top; you still have the ones on
this side. So just press OK when you're done.
And now, we're going to use the Burn Tool, and we're going to set the range to Shadows
and the Exposure. We're going to keep that very low. At 6% we'll be okay, and, as you
can see, it will make the dark grays black, but if you paint on white, nothing would happen.
So when we start painting around this area, you'll see that it will leave the strands
of hair intact, but it will make the background black. So, it's going to do something like
this; up here as well, and on this side, and I'm, probably, going a little faster than
I normally would, just because I want this tutorial short.
So now that we've done that, we can, probably, go into the Image Adjustment Levels menu one
more time and make it a little bit darker here. Well, that's a little too much. Maybe
we'll make the mid tones just a little bit darker; something like that, and then press
OK. Now, we can press Ctrl Command on the Channel icon here to make a selection out
of the Blue channel copy. We go back into the Layers panel. I can add a Layer Mask here.
Now, I'm going to shut off the visibility to this Layer and if I bring up the bathroom
background layer, you'll see the good job this did. I'm going to Zoom In, just so you
could see. We did a pretty good job at selecting the hair.
Now, there's a few problems that I'm going to show you how to fix in a moment. There
are areas where I wish there was more hair, there was more density. So what I want to
do is select the woman copy and we'll just call this "hair," just so we know what we're
working with here. We'll call that later "hair." And I'm going to press Ctrl J. You'll notice
that when I did that, it added more density to some of the areas, like here and here,
and this is looking pretty good. So, another thing I can do is Create a New Layer, Select
the Eyedropper Tool, and pick one of the darker browns here, so, maybe, something like that.
Then press Ctrl Command on the Layer Mask here to make a Selection out of that Mask,
and I can fill that Mask with my foreground color by holding Alt and Backspace. That's
Option and Backspace on the Mac. I'm going to press Ctrl D, Command D, to Deselect and
I'm going to use this Layer to fill in some of the strands of hair that you see here on
the bottom. So I'm going to create a Layer Mask by clicking on this icon here. But before
I do so, I'm going to hold Alt on my keyboard and that's going to create an Inverted Mask
because I was going to hide everything.
Now, keep in mind that the pixels are only where the Selection is, so we don't have to
worry about staying within the lines. So I'm going to enable the Layer again, and if I
paint with the Brush Tool with white, you'll see how the strands of hair started showing
up, but let me Zoom In just so you can get a better view of that. See these strands of
hair? They're just slowly appearing, and I got a little bit of the shoulder there, so
just be careful when you're doing it. I'm not going to take time to delete it, because
if you go too far into the image, you'll start coloring, you'll start painting that color
inside the image and you don't want to do that. So just be careful.
Anyway, so I'm just going to go around the image, and I'm just going to bring some of
those strands of hair back that got lost, like so. Right over here, like so, and we'll
get a few more up here. So look at that. That looks beautiful. And you know what? If you
want to be more realistic in your image, I'm just using one solid color just to show you
how it works, but you can, obviously, pick different colors that match the hair color
better. So, notice up here, when I paint it over, it doesn't really match, so I could
do several things. I could either choose another color and then paint with it, or I could even
use the Clone Stamp Tool and try to clone some of those in there, but I'm not going
to take the time to do that. Feel free to do so in your image if you want to. And, by
the way, just now, I noticed I made a small mistake when I was painting.
When I chose a different color, I was actually in the Layer Mask, not in the Layer, so when
I painted it, I painted the same color, obviously, because I didn't move over into this layer.
But anyway, I'm sure you get what I'm talking about. So I'm going to continue doing this
and I'm going to go a little bit faster so I can show you the other technique if you
have Photoshop CS6, actually CS5, CS6, or CC, and there we go. And I got a little bit
over the shoulder, so, actually, I'll just Undo that and paint again.
So, as you can see, this is the final image, and notice how it almost looks like she's
really there. Look at that hair. I think it looks great. And it didn't take us that long
to do this. It took us so far about 9 minutes or so, but I've been talking and showing you
channels and stuff like that. If I wasn't explaining how things were done, I could,
probably, do this in just a couple of minutes, and I'm sure you can as well, as long as you
remember the steps. So I'm going to put all of these into one folder and Iím just going
to call this folder "Channel" to remind us that we created this extraction using the
channel panel. So, I'm going to do the same thing again, but this time, I'm going to use
a tool that I believe started in CS5. I could be wrong. If I am, just feel free to leave
a message and tell me in what version it started, but I'm going to create a quick Selection
with the Quick Selection Tool. Oops, sorry about that. I'm in the wrong folder or Layer
here. I should have been in the woman layer, and I'm just going to press Ctrl Z to Undo
all that and make sure I'm in the woman layer. And I'm going to make a Selection around her
using the Quick Selection Tool, but I need to make sure that after I'm done with the
Selection, I go and remove some parts.
These parts, here, where there's no-- and I'll Zoom In just so you can see, where there's
no large clumps of hair, or just a few strands, we got to remove that. So I'm going to hold
Alt, and notice on the brush, when I hold Alt, you get a little minus sign. Hold Alt.
When you see the minus sign, just Deselect those areas like there and maybe here, and
here. Essentially, any area that's got that gray because there's not enough hair to cover
the entire background, so maybe these areas here, here, and, actually, I have to add the
shoulder. Okay, so I'm going to Zoom out, and, by the way, when I Zoom Out, I'm holding
the Alt and using the mouse to Zoom Out or Zoom In, and that's Option on the Mac.
Okay, so now that I got this Selection, I can click on the Layer Mask icon and create
a Layer Mask around that, and, obviously, this is not looking as good as the other extraction
yet, but what we're going to do now is click on Mask Edge, right here on the Properties
for the Layer MasksóMask Edge. And this is the tool here, the Refined Radius Tool. I
think that was added in CS5, and as I said before, if I'm mistaken, just leave a message
down below and let everybody know what version it started in. Anyway, so, with this tool
selected, I can change the size of this brush. So for this particular case, something around
92 should work okay, and I'm just going to start painting around the selection where
the hair is, like so here, and notice that I'm going really fast. You don't have to be
exact at all at this tool; you can just paint fairly quickly, like so here, okay? And then,
just let go.
And look at the wonderful job this tool did. It just pretty much got rid of everything
that was gray. When I press OK, I'm going to Zoom In and you can see it did a terrific
job. And we can do what we did before with the other tool. Iím going to Zoom Out, and
I can press Ctrl J to duplicate that Layer, to add more density, like so. And I, of course,
can create a Selection around the hair by clicking Command or Ctrl on the Layer Mask
icon. If I make the selection I can create a new layer, fill it with that same brown
we were using before. I don't need to select a new color since we're using the same image.
I'm going to press Ctrl D to Deselect. I'm going to create a new Layer Mask on that Layer,
too, but I'm going to hold Alt to Invert the Selection, as we did before. Press B on the
keyboard to bring back my Brush Tool, and with white, I can continue painting on those
strands of hair to make it more [inaudible 00:14:53], as we did before.
So as you can see, we're bringing some of those strands of hair back, and I'm sure you're
looking at this right now and thinking, "Wow, I never thought I would be able to extract
an image that look like this," but I purposely took an image that had some really, really
gnarly hair, so you could really see the possibilities of extracting hair with Photoshop and how
easy it is to do. For some reason, a lot of people think it's hard, but it's really not
if you know the steps, and, again, I'm going faster than I normally would, and I would,
probably, select different colors and try to match the highlights and all of that, but
I don't think it's necessary. I just wanted to show you how to make that selection. So,
I'm going to grab those and turn them into a Group, and this will be "Refined Edge" because
that's the tool that we used to create the Selection, and you can move her around and
you see that, you know, she pretty much looks good everywhere she goes.
Now, when you're working with your image, and remember that the background has a lot
to do with how your image looks. So a lot of times, some backgrounds would just not
work, just because of the lighting and the texture on the background. So, don't feel
too discouraged if your image does not look as good as you're intending it to. I'm actually
going to finish up the tutorial with one thing that I was not planning to do. I'm going to
click on the top layer here. I'm going to add Photo Filter, just so the entire composition
has the same tone. It makes these two images look as if they belong together. So that's
one little trick there for you. After you finish up your composition, just add a Filter.
You can do a warming one, a cooling one. In this particular case, I just think the regular
warming filter works, so as you can see, it just sort of makes everything look like it
belongs, and you can bring the Opacity down, if you want. But in this particular case,
I think, 100% works fine.
So, thank you for watching. I hope you enjoyed this tutorial. If you have any comments, leave
them down below. Also, remember to go to my website and enter your email on the sidebar,
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for watching and I'll talk to you guys again next time.