PS Tutorial 2: Effective composite images

Tutorial PS Smart Tutorial II: Effective synthesis of images

One of the biggest difficulties when you want to combine a theme from a picture with a different background is to get a clear selection of the subject. If you're working on a portrait, it usually means you have to solve the problem of hair--separating the hair from the background to be perfectly natural, neither too vague nor too stiff. There is no single best way to handle it, depending on the contrast of the hair color and background, and whether there are clear strands of fine hair mixed in other things. This tutorial explains how to select the right object in a composite image, how to use the new improved Extraction command in Photoshop 6.0 to select a clear selection, and how to make the theme appear harmonious in the new environment.

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1. Analyzing images

Select the theme and background picture you want to synthesize. We need to look for pictures that don't clash with the light. The warm golden brown ambient light in our chosen sunset image will replace the cool green background light in the character's picture, but as you know, we can finally adjust the green hue of the highlight (in part 8th). In the background picture, the direction of the light falls straight into the camera, and in the character picture, the light comes from the back and left of the woman in the image (pay attention to the high light area of her shoulder), so there is no conflict between the background illumination and the light direction of the character picture. So we are sure to make a convincing composite image of the two pictures.

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2. Start extraction

The extract command (Image > Extract) is the best tool for Photoshop to handle difficult selection problems such as hair. Using this command, however, destroys the image by permanently deleting pixels. So before extracting, you need to duplicate the layer to just in case. To do this, drag the layer you want to copy on the layers panel and go to the new Layer button at the bottom of the panel. Click on the bottom eye icon to turn off layer visibility. This way, you can see the results of the extraction of the copy.

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3. Scope of definition

Select the extract command from the Image menu and choose a color from the high-light pull-down menu, where we choose red, which contrasts with the green background of the image. Make sure you have selected the edge of the high light tool to set the brush size. Larger brushes are appropriate for softer or blurry edges, so we set our brush size to 40 pixels to select the hair. Use an edge high light to define the range to be extracted (Figure 04) along the edge of the object, overlapping a line between the foreground object and the background. Because everything within the brush range is transparent, the hair in the high light area will be selected in a way suitable for the new background color.

(Figure 04)

Small brushes are suitable for hard or two tight edges. In many images, soft and hard edges appear. For example, in our image, we want to use a small brush to draw the woman's left and back neck to the high light edge of the shoulder. But we do not need to reset the size of the brush, as long as the "smart highlight", you can make the edge of the high light device has "magnetic", regardless of the current brush size, can automatically shrink, when you move the high light tool just cover the edge of the highlight.

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Tips for drawing edges with high light:

To get closer to the edge, you can zoom in to extract the preview window with the Zoom tool. You can also throw away the zoom tool to master yourself. Smart lights are stroked along high contrast edges, so when you need to work with low contrast edges, you can press Ctrl/command to switch between turning on and off the smart high light.

4. Complete the extraction

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