How to Cut Out ANYTHING in Photoshop [SELECT and MASK Crash Course]

Hi. Welcome back to the Photoshop training Channel I'm mrs. Ramirez in, this video I'm going to show you how to make cutouts using, the select and mask workspace, in, Photoshop. You. Can think of this Photoshop, tutorial as a mini, crash course on selected, masks but, also as an explanation of my masking, workflow you. Will learn what all the tools and sliders in a selected mask workspace, do and how to use them properly this. Tutorial was inspired, by the comments, in my making, white backgrounds, video a lot of people mention, how much they learn from my masking workflow and that they understood selected, masks much better by, how I explained, it so, I figured that I would expand on that video and do, a complete explanation, on, selected, masks by, the way I'll place a link right below in the description, in case you want to watch that making, white backgrounds, video okay. Let's get started we're going to work with this document, that contains two layers we have this. Background element, and this, foreground element and we're of course going to remove the background so that it looks like the model is on this, field now. Before we go any further I want to address a question that I'm sure will come up it, always comes up with masking. Tutorials, and that is why. Am i using a flat color background, and not, something with, a busy background the. Answer is because it's. Easier that way much, like a movie director, will use green screen to. Place actors. In a different background in. Compositing. And photography, you should use a solid background when you shoot your model I understand. That this is not always possible sometimes. You have to work with what the client gives you and if, that's the case then you have to use alternate. Techniques and understand, that you, won't be able to get a perfect selection having. Said that I do have, a video where, I show, you a couple techniques that you can use to. Extract hair, from, busy backgrounds, and I'll place a link right below in the description, for that video in case, you're interested in that but anyway I'm in Photoshop, CC and for, this tutorial we're, going to use the selected, masks workspace, to remove the background now, don't, worry if you're in an older version of Photoshop a lot of the principles are, the same you're.

Just Going to be in a different tool so, let me quickly show you what to do if you're in Photoshop, cs6, or older, first, use, the quick selection, tool to make a selection, around. Your. Main subject once. We have a selection active, you're, going to see a button titled. Refine. Edge if. You're in Photoshop CC and you want to get to the old refine, edge dialog. You, can hold shift going. To select and then, click on select. And mask this, will only work if, you have a selection, or a layer mask active and this. Brings up the old refine. Edge and these. Are the different, tools, that you can use to refine this selection. Remember. That all these options are going to be available in the selected mask workspace, in Photoshop, cc so, when I talk about those features, in CC you can apply that information, to this old dialog box then. By the way if you're in Photoshop CC and you prefer the old refine, edge this, is how you get it let. Me know that in the comments below if you prefer, this old dialog, box I prefer, the new one and hopefully after this video you'll. Also prefer the new one but, anyway I'm gonna press cancel for now and I'm going to show you what to do when you're in Photoshop, cc and newer, I'm, going to press ctrl, D command D, to deselect and, we're gonna start from scratch if, you're a Photoshop, CC user what, you need to do first is make a selection as you, saw you, can start making a selection by, using, the quick selection tool or you. Can just simply, click. On selected. Masks this. Is going to get us into the selected mask workspace, and the. First thing that I want you to notice is that we are currently, in, the onion, skinning mode which. Allows you to see the original. Background and, the, selected areas the, selected areas are shown at 100%. Right, now nothing, is showing because we haven't selected anything, and of. Course at 0%, we see the original, background so, I just leave it at 50% for now and on. The left hand side we have the selection, tools the tool on the very top is the quick selection tool and it works just like the regular quick, selection, tool you can click and drag to. Make a selection around. The. Object. That you want to select, or you. Can use Adobe's. Artificial, intelligence, Adobe sensei, to analyze, the image and make, a selection and, you can do so by simply clicking on select subject this feature uses, machine, learning technology, and, it'll. Try to determine the subject of the image and notice that it did a really good job in selecting. This woman if I increase the transparency you can see that we've already done a fantastic, job. On masking. Her out obviously. The selection is not perfect, but we can now refine it so what I'm gonna do is I'm gonna change the view to something else we. Can select black, which simply means a black background or, on, white, which, again simply, means a white background or. Instead. I can select overlay, which, lets me choose, the color of the background by default the color is red but, I'm going to select a dark gray. Color, and. Press ok I'm also going to increase the opacity to 100%. I can. Also indicate, where, to apply the gray overlay in the, masked areas, in other words the, areas, that are not selected, or, in, the, selected. Areas in. This case it makes much more sense to, use. Masked areas then, I can zoom in by using, the zoom tool and I. Can continue to refine the selection so I need to find areas like in-between her arms to deselect and I, can do that by using the quick selection tool and either. Clicking. On this button to subtract, or holding. Alt option, on the Mac and clicking, and dragging to subtract then, I'm gonna reduce the size of the brush so I'm gonna go and reduce, it down to about 16, pixels, then, I'm gonna hold alt option on the Mac and click and drag to subtract this. Area, is quite difficult so, instead, I'm going to use the. Brush, tool and I'm. Just gonna click. And drag to, paint those pixels away and I'm gonna do so by holding alt option, on the Mac to subtract, those pixels, and again I don't have to be a hundred percent precise, yet, and then. You can find other similar areas, to correct so, once again I'm gonna go and select. The quick selection tool and I'm going to use the left bracket key on the keyboard to make the brush smaller you. Could also use. You saw the slider, but, I like using the bracket keys better then, I'm gonna hold alt option on a Mac and click and drag to subtract, from that selection I could. Also use either, the lasso tool to, freehand. A selection so if I hold alt option, on the Mac and, click and drag to draw selection, I can subtract or, I, can, use the, polygonal lasso tool hold. Alt option, on the Mac click and. Click again to create, a selection, with. As many sizes you need when. You close the selection it will subtract, that, area, from the mask so, I can click to draw this line click, again to create another point and I'm just clicking as I create points and when I complete, the selection as I'm holding alt you'll.

Notice That it will subtract, those pixels, hold. The spacebar click, and drag to pan and look for another area, to refine in the, polygonal lasso tool works great in areas like this one so I'm going to hold alt click. Click, again click. One more time and. When I close the selection it, will subtract, that, area from the mask in this, line here in between our fingers I'm. Just going to use the, brush tool and I'm just gonna zoom in by. Pressing the Z key then. Press the B key again and hold, alt option on the Mac and click and drag to subtract, those. Pixels in between our finger and I'll, double click on the hand tool to fit the image to screen and again, you can spend a whole lot of time fine-tuning, the image but that's not really what this tutorial is about so we'll. Move on we're. Gonna work with the panels, on the right hand side to refine, the selection I'm, not gonna worry about the hair for now and I'm. Just gonna go down the list and explain what everything does first, and then, I'll actually apply, the adjustments, that I want to make so, edge detection. What. Is edge detection if, Frank tweeze the radius, you, can see the edge of the selection, changing, but you really don't know what's going on and to. Show you how the edge detection works I'm going to enable, show, edge but. Notice that it's grayed out to. Enable, it I first, need to select the, refine, edge brush, tool then I can come back and check, show. Edge. Nothing happens but, if I increase the radius, you're. Gonna see an outline of. What. Photoshop, is trying to analyze, and select, so. Edge detection, allows. You to analyze an edge in this case a two pixel, edge and I can have an edge much larger, than that a 42. Pixel edge if I, disable. Show edge you, can see how Photoshop, now that's a really good job with the hair and in. Some cases it doesn't do a good job like under our hand here at the bottom it destroys, that part so, you have to fine-tune.

The. Radius. Of the edge also. You have smart, radius notice, that right now we have a 32 pixel, edge around. The. Entire, selected. Subject, but. If I select smart radius notice, now how we have an edge that is thicker, in some areas and thinner, in other areas this, is Photoshop trying to determine, what. The content, is in an areas like, hair it, creates, a thicker, edge and in, straight edge areas, like, on her body here it creates, a thinner edge and to, be clear inside. Of this border, this, is where the edge, refinement. Occurs so. The thicker the edge the. More that, Photoshop, analyzes. To remove the foreground from the background in, this, case I don't, want to use either, the. Smart radius or the. Edge, radius. So I'm going to bring this down to zero and I'm going to disable. Show, edge, instead. I'm just gonna work with, the, global, refinements, and to. Show you what they do first, I'm going to change the view to black, and white and I'm, gonna zoom in by, selecting, the zoom tool into. This, area here, remember. This, is our layer mask black. Hides in white, reveals anything. A black is hidden anything, in white will show let's, start with a smooth, slider smooth. Allows. You to smooth, the edge so notice how we have a Jaggi edge watch. What happens when I increase the smooth see how it smoothes the edges out so. You have to determine a good smooth, setting. For your particular image. Then, we have feather feathers. Simply, blurs the edges, so, notice how the edges are getting blurrier, and blurrier and just, so that you can see what's going on I'm gonna go back into the. Overlay mode and you, can now see that we have a blurry edge, back. On black. And white I can, now increase, the contrast. Contrast. Makes. Dark. Mask. Pixels. Black and bright. Mask pixels, white so, notice these bright, and dark, pixels, here watch what happens when I increase contrast, see, how they start becoming white and black until I have a straight, edge when. I push contrast, all the way to 100%, so. That's what this lighter is controlling, I'm. Gonna bring the feather back, down to. Zero contrast. To zero and now, we're gonna talk about shift, edge shift. Edge simply, means pushing the edge inward, or outward, if. You want to push the edge inward, you click and drag the shift edge slider, to the left see how that goes in or I can. Push it out in. And. Out simple. As that so I'm just gonna type, zero, to reset, that slider I'm, gonna change the view back, to overlay, and now we're really going to use these sliders to control how the edge of my model, looks so. I'm, looking at these edges, here and I'm. Gonna start by adding just a little bit of smooth maybe a value, of two. And. I'm gonna add just a slight feather just blur that edge a little bit and I'm, going to increase the contrast, and watch what happens as I increase the contrast, my, edge starts, becoming more defined and I lose a lot of that fringing, that, outline, that, was alongside, the. Edge of the mask and to. Further, refine that mask I'm just going to click and drag the shift edge to. The left to, remove more of that outline. Around the edge of the arms and the rest of the body and I. Notice, that in this area here we have some sharp pixels, I'm just going to increase the feather just a little bit more, just. Do not have so. Much of those Jaggi. Pixels, here, and this part of the selection, I'm. Holding the spacebar and then I'm clicking dragging, to analyze, the mask and by the way I'm not really. Concerned about the hair the hair is gonna be a different step in this tutorial so I'm disregarding. It completely, in this step and if. You're wondering why well. That's, because any adjustments, that I made to the global refinements, are also going to be applied, to the hair so, if I start adjusting the hair with the refine edge tool then.

It's Not going to do a good job because. These. Adjustments, were meant for straight. Edge, selections. Which. Are very different than here so I'm not really concerned about the hair for now so I'm just going to press ctrl Z command Z on the Mac to undo and I'm, just going to disregard, the hair and. The. Selection looks pretty good for now now. You, have to decide how you're going to output, this this is what the output settings do output. To layer mask is what I'm gonna select if you can't select, this, option that's, probably, because you have the contaminate, color selected, with, this option selected you. Can't, click, on layer, mask I'll come, back to this option later. In this tutorial for now we'll, just select, layer, mask and press, ok. And now, we have a really good layer mask that takes care of the body but. The, hair is still a problem we. Can continue working with one layer just. Like I did on the white, background video, that I've referenced in this tutorial but. To, change, things up a bit and just to show you a different technique I'm gonna use a second. Layer to, adjust the hair and sometimes. It's easier to break a subject, apart especially. When subjects have different types of edges so, you make, a selection for the body and one layer and you make a selection for the hair in another layer so. What I'm gonna do first is I'm just going to click. On the lasso tool and I'm just gonna make a selection. By clicking and, dragging. Along. Her. Hair like, so. Then. With. The layer mask thumbnail, active. I'm going to make sure that Black, is my foreground color, then. I'm going to hold alt and backspace, that's. Option, delete on the Mac to fill, with the foreground color which, will fill the layer mask with black which. Hides, the. Selected areas which in this case it's our mottos hair I'm, going to press ctrl D command D to deselect and. I'm. Just going to duplicate this layer so, click and drag it into the new layer icon so. Now I have a second layer so this layer is the. Body and this, layer here will be the. Hair then. Right click and delete the layer mask so. I have this layer here that just includes her body and her face but, not the hair in this layer will be for the hair so, with this second layer active I'm just gonna go in to select the mask and I'm. Just going to bring. Down the opacity a little bit so that I can see her face and, with. The quick selection tool I'm just going to click and drag to select hair. Hair and, it's okay if I select their face is not a big deal so. Now with her hair selected, I can, now refine, the edges of her hair separately. From our body and I can make completely, different adjustments, in the global refinements, that will give me better results, so. What. I will do now is increase. The opacity to, 100%. And this will really show, me what the hair looks like also. In this case I think I'm gonna change the overlay, color to maybe a lighter. Gray, because, I think it'll help me see the hair better and we're. Gonna work with the. Edge detection so. Remember what I said earlier if I click on show edge we can see the edge of the selection, in this case we're not applying any edge detection, but. If I increase the radius now. I'm applying edge detection, pitch, detection simply, means that Photoshop, looks in that edge and uses, an algorithm to subtract the foreground from the background but, I don't want Photoshop to determine the edge for me I want. To tell, Photoshop but the edge is so. I'm just gonna reduce, the opacity just, a little bit and. With. The refine edge brush. Tool I can tell Photoshop what the edge is so, I'm just gonna paint, on this area here so, I'm telling Photoshop, this is an edge and watch what happens when I disable, show edge actually. So that you can see what's going on I'm going to increase. The opacity and, I'm gonna change the color to something else I'm gonna change the color to maybe this darker.

This. Darker gray and. Notice. What happens when I paint see how Photoshop, is now analyzing, the foreground and background and, removing the background that's, what the edge that action is doing also, if I click on show edge you. Can see that Photoshop is just working, on this edge if, I increase the radius you can see the, edge so watch what happens if I just bring it all the way up to to. 100 pixels if. I disable show edge Photoshop. Analyzes. The entire. Image, but again I don't want Photoshop, determining. The edge based. On the. Radius I want, to tell it what to do so, I'd rather just paint it in myself so. I'm gonna disable. Show edge and I'm just gonna paint alongside. The, edge of her hair like, so. So. See I'm telling Photoshop focus. On these areas for, the. Edge detection, of the hair. When. You're done you can just press ok. And now, we have two layers we have this layer that controls the, body and we. Have this layer that controls, that face and the. Hair but when we enable both layers together then. We of course get, a full extraction, now. I'm, gonna double, click on the. Thumbnail here. To come back into the selected mask workspace, and I can use these global refinement. Adjustments. On the hair so. If I press the Z, key and the keyboard, and click to zoom in you. Can see that if I start smoothing the selection, I make those adjustments there, I really. Don't want to make any smoothing. So I'm just gonna leave that at zero and, I'm gonna add just a slight feather so, that we don't have too many pixelated. Pixels, there and then. I'm gonna increase the contrast, just a little bit and maybe. Shift the edge inwards, just, a tiny bit something like that and I. Think this is a really, really, good selection and by, the way these are the settings that work for this image for your image you may need to make completely, different adjustments, and that's okay now, I know what you're probably thinking you're, thinking that some of these stray. Hairs have, a lot of that fringing, a lot of that edging going on it looks too bright it doesn't look good well, I have two answers for that first I'm gonna press ok and I.

Don't Want you to worry about that fringing if it doesn't affect the, image in the background that is in because sometimes, you may do a lot of work but it really doesn't make a difference because the background actually matches, the hair and the fringing, now, if you have to remove the fringing, there's really, two things that you can do I'm gonna show you an option that Photoshop gives you but, I prefer doing it manually and I'll show you that process as well so, if I once, again with, the layer. Mask thumbnail, selected, for the hair I can, click on selected mask if i, zoom in you can see the fringing and if, I select, decontaminate. Colors under, output settings you can see how Photoshop. Automatically, color corrects, those colors. Unfortunately. You. Cannot output, as a layer mask so. You have to create a new layer with. A layer mask and then press okay that, creates a second, layer and, you. Can see how it fix, that, fringing, see that this is before and. This. Is after so it looks much better however, there's, two problems number, one you already saw we created a new layer I can disable the layer mask by holding shift and clicking on the layer mask thumbnail and you can see how, Photoshop, simply, colored, those, areas, to match the hair this. Of course is, a destructive, effect which I don't like and. Also it's the same color all throughout. The, edges, of the selection, which in a lot of cases it doesn't work that well so I usually don't like doing that so I'm just gonna click and drag this layer into the trash icon to delete it and I'm gonna focus on this. Layer so, what. I'm gonna do instead of using, the, decontaminate. Colors option, is create. A new blank, layer and I'm, going to press ctrl alt G command option, G on the Mac to. Make a clipping, mask a clipping, mask simply. Means that the layer below controls, the visibility of the layer on top so, when I click, on the brush tool and, make. A larger brush by tapping on the right bracket key I can paint and notice I'm only painting, in. Side. Of the visible, pixels, from the layer below and you can already tell what I'm gonna do I'm just simply gonna paint those, in by hand so, I'm gonna undo that control Z and then. I'm going to hold alt, option, on the Mac with. The, brush, tool selected, to temporarily, select, the eyedropper tool so I can select. One of these Browns here and then start painting and. Select, a different Brown and paint this areas up here and, I. Can just go through the entire. Edges. Of the hair selecting. Similar, Browns or whatever color the hair that you're working with is and. Just. Work with those pixels. Like. So now, in some cases you may paint and you may just go in too far and you create something that doesn't look too good and the. Way to fix, that is by using a selection, and the mask actually so let me double. Tap on the hand tool to zoom out and I'll. Actually zoom in just a little closer just, because I want you to see what's going on here so, what you can do is hold. Ctrl command, on the Mac and click on, the, hair layer mask to load, the, layer mask that's the selection, then. I'm gonna make it smaller, by, contracting. It select. Modify. Contract, and. I'll just make it two pixels smaller. Now. I want, to invert. It so that, everything. Outside of, those two pixels, is, selected. And everything, inside of those two pixels is not that. Means that this Brown here that I painted, right here next to her I will. Not be visible the only visible areas will be two pixels, away from the edge go. In to select, inverse. So. This is going to invert, the selection you, can see how now I have marching, ants across, the canvas on the top and with. Layer 1 selected all, I need to do is click, on the layer mask icon and, that, creates a layer mask that contains, anything, that we paint on within, two pixels, of the edge of the mask in other words we're, targeting the stray hairs and not, the, detail, of the hair if I click on the layer thumbnail then. Select the brush tool and paint you'll. See that I cannot paint on her face but, I can definitely paint, on the edges where the stray, hairs are so, all you need to do is select, a color of the stray hair and just paint that color back in, like. So and if. I enable the body, and double, click on the hand tool you, can see what a good selection we made simply, by separating, the two pieces and by, painting in those stray hairs at, this point all you need to do is work in the details like in this area here so select.

The Layer then. Select the brush tool hold, alt and click to, select the color of the hair and continue. Painting. Obviously. Take some time when you're working on your project, one, thing that I didn't mention earlier that I probably should mention now is that in some cases and, I'll zoom in and see if this is the case here I I'm, not sure if it was yeah. It was so, here, I'm gonna disable the body. Layer, and, just enable this regular, layer and I'll also disable. The background, it's more noticeable see, how these areas are translucent that's, because the refine edge saw, those, lighter colors and assumed, it was part of the background it, really wasn't so. To fix it we're going to select the layer mask thumbnail. Then, select, the brush tool and make sure that white, is our foreground color in or reduce the size of the brush by tapping on the left bracket key and then, paint on those, transparent, areas, to. Bring the hair back simple. As that these. Highlights, same, thing Photoshop, assumed, it, was part of the background but. No worries we can simply paint those back in and there's, different areas in the image like. These. Strands. Of hair where, we had that issue but, again it's really easy to paint those back so no. Big deal, and in your projects make sure that you work on all those fine details because, that's what will make your mask look, more realistic and when you're done just enable the body layer the hair layer in the background, and you, will see what a good job we did making. That selection and by, the way it's important, to keep in mind that every image is different and it will require different settings, different, techniques different methods, however. If, you follow the techniques shown in this tutorial you, will always start on the right foot if you want to learn more about cutouts, and masking, then, check out my advanced hair masking tutorial I'll place, a link right below in the description, also, if this is your first time at the Photoshop training channel please, click on that subscribe and. Notification. Buttons that way you're notified, whenever I post any tutorial thank. You so much for watching and I will talk to you again very soon.

2018-09-09 21:54

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