Masking Hair with busy background?

[FlipSide]

ok, I came across a nice tut on masking hair on subjects that have a white background. its straight forward and is very detailed.

http://www.photoshopsupport.com/elements/tutorials/extract-hair/masking-tutorial.html

I'm wondering if this would be the 'normal' (quick v's detailed) way of doing it?

which also leeds me onto the main part of my question. how would you go about it when the subject is on a busy background?

I personally use my wacom for all body shapes (removal of major/minor negative spaces) and then come draw back in the main 'clumps' of hair (into their original position +/-)

you guys come across any nice techniques for these kind of busy background removals?

[FlipSide]

* photoshop cs3 btw

[CkretAjint]

A combination of channel masking and extraction. It's a pain in the arse though!

[Jonski3000]

A combination of channel masking and extraction. It's a pain in the arse though!

QFT.

Such a shame that the 'tards at Corel got their hands on Ultimatte Knockout and royally screwed it over!

[CkretAjint]

I really hope your QFT is in reference to Quoted for the Truth and not Quit F'ing Talking. ;)

Anywho, extract is free floating under Filter in Photoshop, or Shift + apple + x. :)

[Jonski3000]

Extract is OK, but nothing could beat the Alpha Channels generated by Knockout!

[Broacher]

Russell Brown and the Extraction tool to the rescue:

http://av.adobe.com/russellbrown/Extracting_Monster_SM.mov

[Broacher]

I just watched that again. The one thing I would add to Russell's tutorial (dare I even say that?) would be to always work on a copy of your target layer for the Extract tool. Why? Because once you complete your extraction on a copy, Ctrl-clk the copy to create a temporary selection, then just switch to the original layer and finally, click on 'Add layer mask' button and you've just made corrections and tweaks a LOT easier than working with the History Brush. Oh, and delete that working copy layer of course.

Once the mask is a Layer Mask, it's a lot easier to use Dodge/Burn to crisp your highlights, etc. (don't forget alt-clking the LMask to show it in grayscale)

And a layer mask is always a better alternative than burning out your background permanently.

[FlipSide]

A combination of channel masking and extraction. It's a pain in the arse though!
Yep, I totally agree. for very fine hair, one without the other doesn't give that perfect result. I *always* find that the extract tool leaves a lot of blotchy areas that still need to be fixed, but it does save a lot of time working on super fine stuff.

I just watched that again. The one thing I would add to Russell's tutorial (dare I even say that?) would be to always work on a copy of your target layer for the Extract tool. Why? Because once you complete your extraction on a copy, Ctrl-clk the copy to create a temporary selection, then just switch to the original layer and finally, click on 'Add layer mask' button and you've just made corrections and tweaks a LOT easier than working with the History Brush. Oh, and delete that working copy layer of course.

Once the mask is a Layer Mask, it's a lot easier to use Dodge/Burn to crisp your highlights, etc. (don't forget alt-clking the LMask to show it in grayscale)

And a layer mask is always a better alternative than burning out your background permanently.
Broacher, I couldn't agree more, i've been using this kind of non-distructive editing for all of my cut-out work.

the burn tool works pretty great for making decent alpha masks.

I also saw some tuts from mark monciardini where he used the polygonal lasso to cut out hard-edge shapes (seemed to take forever :| ), and another technique of colour copy to alpha channel trick that works nice with levels (for smoke, etc)

thanks for the link Broacher...some nice tips in that!

jonski, i see that Knockout has totally disapeared. pity! (never heard of it until now)....anyone else get a chance to use that?

[FlipSide]

re: mark monciardini and "polygonal lasso"...actually it was the pen tool that he used...now that i see it again.

i'm on a new technique binge....lol!