Photoshop - removing a person from a background using masks

If necessary, review the Photoshop tutorial video to remember the steps involved.
Also, review the video and instructions from the post below this one so you're familiar with some of the basics.

Scroll to the spot where we learned this: Quick selection - putting a subject on a different background: 19:40 - 29:12

There is also a step by step tutorial HERE if you prefer following these instructions. The only thing missing is the last few steps with the Colour Blending mode.

Removing a subject from a background and putting them on a different background.

The purpose of this exercise is to practice what was learned yesterday and be able to remove a person from one background and put them on another background.

This will lead up to your major assignment in this unit, where you will take a photograph of yourself and place it on another background to make a movie poster.

Procedure:

1.    Find a minimum of two different photos for this exercise – one MUST be a person (ideally on a white background), the other can be any landscape, or background setting you like.

2.    Save both the photos in your TIJ folder in your home drive so you can find them again.

3.   
With Photoshop open, open the two photos into Photoshop so that you have two tabs open at the top of your screen.

4.    Using the MOVE tool grab the image of the person and drag it up to the tab of the background photos, wait for the photo to open and then without letting go, move the person photo down into the background photo. Then let go.

5.    You will now have both images in one file.

6.    You may need to resize the person photo. Try to find photos that are at least 1000 pixels x 1000 pixels in size.

7.    Resizing – review the previous tutorial. Control T (or Edit, Free Transform)

will bring up the bounding boxes around the image. Don’t forget to press SHIFT (and ALT if you want the image to remain centered while you resize it) and ONLY GRAB BY THE CORNER NODES. Do not let go of Shift until you have stopped resizing.

8.   
Quick Selection:

Using the quick selection tool, slowly select the person from

the background. If you select too much, simply press ALT

and select the parts you want to remove. When you stop

pressing ALT, the quick selection tool will resume ADDING selections. Keep doing this until you have selected the entire person.

9.    Refine Edge: 

Using the View button you can change the view to see the image on the background layer. You can also make any adjustments you like, but watch carefully how it impacts the edge of the image.

10. Most importantly, make sure you click the button at the bottom where it says Output to Decontaminate colors. This will output your selection to a New Layer with Layer Mask. Click OK

11. Now you can move and position the person layer or resize again if necessary.

12. Advanced Step - Colour blending – Click on the MASK for the Layer that has the person photo on it. If you press Control and Click, it will bring up the selection around the photo that you just did. You will see the marching ants around the person.

13. While that is selected, click on the background layer. You are basically copying a piece of the background layer in the exact shape of the person to place on top of the person and blend into them so the colour and lighting match more closely.

14. With the background layer highlighted, and the marching ants around the person, click Control J (or go to the Layer menu, choose New – Layer Via Copy)

15. This will give you an exact copy of the shape of the person cut out from the background layer as a separate layer.

16. Move that layer so that it’s on top of the person layer. This will completely cover up the person.

17. Now choose Color in the Blending Modes.

18. This will apply the colour from that new layer, and blend it in with the layer below. Now change the Opacity to approximately 20%.

19. Make any other adjustments to try to match exposure by using the adjustment layers. Or just leave it as is and SAVE AND HAND IT IN!

20. SAVING YOUR WORK: Choose SAVE AS in the FILE MENU. Save this in YOUR TIJ folder in your Home Drive. Save it as YOURNAME_QUICKSELECT.psd then MOVE the file into the Silverman DropOFF folder. Congratulations! You’re done!

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