There are some outstanding new features in Photoshop CS5 and I certainly wouldn’t be the first to report on them. Instead, I’m going to do a series of blogs on ways that I’ve found make certain aspects of the program creatively irresistible, IMHO. This one’s going to show you how I put a different background behind a couple of very complex subjects that, before CS5, would have been too much of a time investment to tackle.
The old Extract filter (and, for the time being, at least, most 3d party filters) are gone. Supposedly, one can run the most recent versions of the third-party filters by placing CS5 in 32-bit mode, though the version I currently have crashes when I try to do that. I’m sure there’s a solution, but I just haven’t taken the time to find it yet. So, when I need 3d party filters, I just do that part of the processing in CS4.
The new method of making extractions starts with making selections. You can then use the new Select > Refine Edges and Select > Refine Mask commands to make amazingly accurate selections. When you do this, the following dialog pops up.
Since I travel a lot and also shoot models a lot, it means I often wish I had access to a studio. Well, actually, I do, if I want to pay for it, but that’s usually either inconvenient or out-of-budget. So the idea of being able to shoot a model most anywhere and then put here onto almost any kind of background means that I can open up whole new markets for myself. I could always do that, but the example above is a particularly tough one. First the background is reflecting light onto Edith’s blonde hair, so it doesn’t always have the contrast that would make a knockout likely to be accurate. Second there are also all kinds of subtle variations in both the hair and the background.
Well, here’s the good news: I did the above knockout in less than five minutes…and with more experience, that will come down to three or four. All you do is make a selection that includes all or most everything you want to keep. Usually, you can do that “well enough” by just quickly dragging with the Quick Selection Tool. You can then either use the Refine Selection command or you can duplicate the layer and, while the selection is still active, click on the Mask icon at the bottom of the Layers palette and the selection for that layer automatically creates a mask of that layer. You can then use the Refine mask command
Both commands have essential the same dialog (except for it’s name) that gives you six sliders and five checkboxes that let you interactively control exactly how that selection is going to look. You’re also given a visual drop-down menu of different ways of previewing the selection. You can cycle through the views on the right by simply pressing F on your keyboard. I often find it handy to switch between the On Black (press B), which shows an immediate white space between transitions, and the On Layers (press L) view, which shows me the layer below with a white space between the under-layer and my foreground image.
To get to the even more important part of the Refine Edge/Mask dialog (both the same controls and functions, but the latter appears when you’ve made a mask from a selection) all you have to do is click on the dialog itself so the View Mode options disappear.
You’ll want to use the On Black or On Layer view modes. Then drag the Radius brush to include as much area around the selection as it takes to include all the irregular or semi-transparent edges that you want to include. You’ll be able to see that radius increase and, as you do, your irregular edges will include more and more of what you want to keep. If you go too far, you’ll start to see things “creep into view” along some of the more geometric edges.
That’s easy to fix: Just check Smart Radius and the edge will become more narrow when it’s closer to smooth edges, so those edges are much less likely to show unexpected transparency in those areas of the image that are more geometric and need a smaller radius for that part of the selection. When you preview the radius, you know that the Refinement Touch Up brushes will keep anything who’s colors and shapes are mostly in part of the image that you want to be the forground and will delete anything that’s mostly in the part you want to be the background.
Actually, there are two Touch Up brushes if you click on the tool’s pull-down arrow: Refine Radius and Erase Refinements. Refine radius brings the radius closer to including just what you want to keep. If you don’t like the immediate result that produces (and you see it instantly as it happens), just switch to the Erase Refinements Brush and squiggle over it. Then you can use the sliders to refine what your Refine Radius brush does.
Flying Hair Isn’t all You Can Select
Here’s another image that is complicated by the geometrics of nature in a way that’s much different from flying hair. I wanted to do a whole series of images of flowers in such a way that I could give them a less confusing background. You’ll see this blog followed by another blog that shows you four such images. When it came to doing the knockout, all were done by the following method.
Now, if you look closely at the selection dots, you’ll see that the selection is not yet very accurate. But, given the capabillities of the Refine Mask dialog, it’s “close enough.” All I had to do to make it was use the Quick Selection tool.
First, I selected all the big areas of flowers and leaves. Then I pressed Opt/Alt and clicked and “subtracted” the areas that I didn’t want to keep in the background. Alternatively, I could have just used Select All and then put the Quick Selection tool in Subtract mode to take out everything I wanted to loose.
Then, I used the Refine Mask dialog to make sure I was really getting the edge quality from all those fine little parts.
First, I saved the selection as Knockout Layer (that’s how I got to show the selection and the mask at the same time, BTW). It’s good insurance, in case you should decide to do the same thing to the same image with a different background later on because when you make that selection a mask by clicking the Mask Icon at the bottom of the layers palette, the selection “ants” evaporate. Because I’d saved the selection, all I had to do to show you the at the same time was to click the Mask icon at the bottom of the layers palette.
Now all I had to do was to use the Refine Mask dialog in exactly the same way that I used it to knock out Edith’s face. The finished result gives you a good idea of just how powerful and versatile this tool can be:
If you want to see some really good “movies” on some of the more outstanding Photoshop CS5 features, you might want to check out this link on the Adobe site:
http://tv.adobe.com/watch/learn-photoshop-cs5/using-improved-selecting-and-masking/
All these movies were made by the excellent talent at Lynda.com. I’m just here to get you even more excited by showing you some of the artistic possibilities that these new features can provide you with. Lots more to come, so stay tuned.
Speaking of future blogs, I’m also going to do a whole series of photo blogs that will show you 4-6 examples of using particular shooting techniques, new technologies, and processing software just to stimulate you as to what some of the creative possibilities might be. Of course, if it also stimulates to visit my gallery site: kenmilburn.smugmug.com, I won’t mind at all and would love to hear your feedback. I have to forewarn you, though, that there’s still lots of organizational work to do there. Pretty soon, however, you’ll be able to order images in a variety of sizes and print types.
Hasta luega and greetings from my photo-exploration of Panama City in a very digital way.
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