Photo Background Extraction

Filed under Photoshop Tutorials - Head Nerd @ November 26th, 2005

The extract command
The Extract command in Photoshop enables you to isolate a foreground object from its background. Even objects with undefinable edges like hair can now be clipped from their backgrounds with very little manual work.
Open the image with the object you want to isolate. I choose an image with a pigeon to demonstrate better that you can extract it with a high level of precision

After you have loaded an image, go to Image>Extract. You�ll see the same image come up in the Extract window.

	The first thing we�ll need to do is outline our foreground object, in this case it will be the pigeon. Select the Edge Highlighter tool (as shown). Now set a brush size and outline your foreground object. Zoom in if needed



Now we need to fill our foreground object by using the Fill Tool. Select this tool and click in the center of the object.

Now we are ready to preview the image by pressing the “Preview” button at the top right corner of the window. You now should see the background disappear. Under the Preview Options you can change the background color if needed. If you like what you see, then press the OK button.

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Creating An Inset Object

Filed under Photoshop Tutorials - Head Nerd @ November 25th, 2005

Creating an inset

Make a new document, 500×500 pixels, blue background

Using the eliptical selection tool, create on a new layer a perfect circle. Now using a gradient like in my example, fill this selection. You should come up with something similar:

Go to Select > Modify > Expand and exapand the selection with 5-6 pixels.
With the selection still active, make a new layer and put it under the gradient layer. Rename it “shadow 1″ and fill it with white.
Again, make a new layer, rename it “shadow 2″ and fill it with black.

Now deselect and go to Filter > Blur > Gaussian Blur and apply a gaussian blur of 3 on bothe the “shadow layers”.

Now with the move tool, we will move the white shadow a little to the left and the black shadow to the right. You should see something like this. You’re done

I’ve added a mezotint filter and faded it a little to make a skrew.

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Creating An Aerial Landscape

Filed under Photoshop Tutorials - Head Nerd @ November 25th, 2005

Creating an aerial landscape

First, make a new document, 1000×1000 pixels, as usual, white background.

Go to Filter > Render > Clouds and apply them in document.

Next go to Image > Adjustmens > Curves… to increase the amount of contrast in the image, making the light areas Whiter and the dark areas Blacker. You can see what my curve looked like to the left here.

Now I’m going to select the dark areas. With Black as my foreground color, the easiest way to do this is to choose Select: Color Range. You can see a portion of the Color Range Dialog box to the left I had the Fuzziness Slider up to around 76 and the portion of the image that will be selected appears white in the preview.

After clicking OK in the Color Range Dialog, I made the edges of the selection softer by feathering the selection a few pixels (4) with Select: Feather

Within the selected area, I applied the clouds filter again. These areas are going to be the water eventually and the clouds filter will provide some value variety.

Now use Image > Adjustments > Hue/Saturation command to colorize this area. With the settings in the example, and the colorize box checked I was able to get a pretty good aqua color. Your image should look like this:

Now, to give our sea water a little surface disturbance, go to Filter > Distort > Ocean Ripple. I used Ripple Size:2 and Magnitude:9. You can see the effect

Now let’s go to the terrain. Press CTRL+SHIFT+I to inverse the selection and apply a Filter > Render > Difference Clouds. the difference clouds will give us highlight and shadow areas in the landscape, making the land appear somewhat three dimensional, having hills and valleys.

Use the same Hue/Saturation command with these values: Hue: 131, Saturation: 78, Lightness: -35

Next I gave the ground some texture by applying Filter: Noise: Add Noise

Continuing to add texture to the dry land, I next applied Craquelure, one of the Texture Filters. Craquelure mimics a high-relief plaster surface, producing a fine network of cracks that follow the contours of the image.

Here is the result.

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Archive for November, 2005

Photo Background Extraction

Creating An Inset Object

Creating An Aerial Landscape

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