Quick Mask tutorial
Created this based on another question in the comm, where she asked:
"With redheads, however, it seems like the beige of the skin has so much red in it that trying to bring out the brilliant red of the hair ruins the skin. Does anyone have any tips on how to avoid this? I've tried saturating the hair by hand, but I'm admittedly a novice (and not great at that much precision) and hoping there's a better way."
ETA: This was done in Photoshop 7.
This will work with any image where you want to change levels, or curves but not on the entire image.
I love quick masks, and use them often. The best thing about them is that once you've created them, they're saved in your channels palette, and you can reuse them later for layer masks or other selection-dependent changes.
We'll go from this:
to this:
1. Open the original image, and make a copy of the background layer (remember, in Photoshop, you can't edit on background layers :D)
2. In your Tools Palette, click on the Quick Mask icon. Notice that the color palette choices right above it switch from colors to black and white - that's one way of knowing you're in Quick Mask Mode.
3. Using the paintbrush, paint over the area you want to mask. The black will paint as red, and the white will remove the black if you mess up :)
4. Once you've selected all the area you want to change, click on the Channels Tab in your Layers Palette:
5. Drag the Quick Mask Layer (it will be in italics) to the New Layer button to create a copy of it - you'll use this later. (Show on above graphic)
6. Leave the Quick Mask Mode by clicking on the Edit In Standard Mode button:
7. In the Channels tab, you'll see you now have a black and white layer labelled Quick Mask Layer. Select that layer
8. This step isn't 100% necessary, but really helps in created a smoother selection.
With the Quick Mask Copy layer selected, go to Filters, Blur, Gaussian Blur, and just blur the selection a little bit:
9. After you've blurred, Ctrl-Click on the Quick Mask Layer (yeah, I have 2 there because I always copy one before I do something to it. I'm anal.)
This selects the layer mask.
10. Now, because Photoshop is weird, when you do the Ctrl-Click, what it does is selects the WHITE area. What we want selected is the BLACK, so go to the Selections menu, and choose Inverse. That will leave the hair only selected.
11. Click on the RGB layer in the channels tab, and then Layers Tab in the layers palette.
12. You should have the "Marching Ants" around the hair in the image.
13. Here's where you can make any changes you'd like to this area of the selection. What I did to intensify the red in the hair was go to Levels adjustment, selected the Red channel, and dropped down the middle slider arrow until the color looked a bit more vivid:
And that's it!
Once you've mastered Quick Masks, you'll start to think about other ways you can use them. In complicated images, I'll often have 5-10 masks in my Channels palette, so that I can use those selections later.
Hope this helps!
"With redheads, however, it seems like the beige of the skin has so much red in it that trying to bring out the brilliant red of the hair ruins the skin. Does anyone have any tips on how to avoid this? I've tried saturating the hair by hand, but I'm admittedly a novice (and not great at that much precision) and hoping there's a better way."
ETA: This was done in Photoshop 7.
This will work with any image where you want to change levels, or curves but not on the entire image.
I love quick masks, and use them often. The best thing about them is that once you've created them, they're saved in your channels palette, and you can reuse them later for layer masks or other selection-dependent changes.
We'll go from this:
to this:
1. Open the original image, and make a copy of the background layer (remember, in Photoshop, you can't edit on background layers :D)
2. In your Tools Palette, click on the Quick Mask icon. Notice that the color palette choices right above it switch from colors to black and white - that's one way of knowing you're in Quick Mask Mode.
3. Using the paintbrush, paint over the area you want to mask. The black will paint as red, and the white will remove the black if you mess up :)
4. Once you've selected all the area you want to change, click on the Channels Tab in your Layers Palette:
5. Drag the Quick Mask Layer (it will be in italics) to the New Layer button to create a copy of it - you'll use this later. (Show on above graphic)
6. Leave the Quick Mask Mode by clicking on the Edit In Standard Mode button:
7. In the Channels tab, you'll see you now have a black and white layer labelled Quick Mask Layer. Select that layer
8. This step isn't 100% necessary, but really helps in created a smoother selection.
With the Quick Mask Copy layer selected, go to Filters, Blur, Gaussian Blur, and just blur the selection a little bit:
9. After you've blurred, Ctrl-Click on the Quick Mask Layer (yeah, I have 2 there because I always copy one before I do something to it. I'm anal.)
This selects the layer mask.
10. Now, because Photoshop is weird, when you do the Ctrl-Click, what it does is selects the WHITE area. What we want selected is the BLACK, so go to the Selections menu, and choose Inverse. That will leave the hair only selected.
11. Click on the RGB layer in the channels tab, and then Layers Tab in the layers palette.
12. You should have the "Marching Ants" around the hair in the image.
13. Here's where you can make any changes you'd like to this area of the selection. What I did to intensify the red in the hair was go to Levels adjustment, selected the Red channel, and dropped down the middle slider arrow until the color looked a bit more vivid:
And that's it!
Once you've mastered Quick Masks, you'll start to think about other ways you can use them. In complicated images, I'll often have 5-10 masks in my Channels palette, so that I can use those selections later.
Hope this helps!