(no subject)
Welcome to my first Photoshop tutorial. :) I've been asked by some how to do masking so I decided that Masking would be the first tutorial I do. While I use Photoshop, masking can be done in a variety of other programs. For those programs, you'll have to consult their Help section to see how to get to the tools needed to mask. Also my layout of Photoshop will look slightly different if you're on a PC as I'm on a Mac. But the tricks I'll show you will work for any program. There will be screen caps to illustrate the steps as I go along.
OK, let's get started.
IMAGE 01
First we start with a white background and then add the background image in a layer on top. I use white for this one because the parts I'll be masking out are dark. If you have light portions to mask out, you should use a dark background color. Use any color that will highlight the parts you are masking out. Sometimes you have to play with that color. More on this later. For this tutorial, I will just use a full image that has no adjustments to it. The masking will happen with the images I'll add later. (Note in the LAYERS panel - on the right of the image - that you see two other images (one is highlighted in green and the other is right below it). Disregard these images as they are in the original file that I'm changing for this tutorial. Also disregard the top layer with the "T". That's a text layer from the original file and we'll see that at the end.
IMAGE 02
Now I've added a pix of Jack. There is a little bit of image around him that I don't want. Here comes the masking.
IMAGE 03
I HIDE the image of Kate to see the white background color so I can see more clearly what I'll be masking out. As you can see, white is the perfect color for the background because the green foliage I'll be masking shows up againt it perfectly.
IMAGE 04
I enlarge the image so I can see it better to get closer to the edges.
IMAGE 05
I've chosen a BRUSH SIZE of 17. Be sure to use a SOFT EDGED BRUSH for this. A hard edged brush will not give you the soft affect and will make your image look jagged.
IMAGE 06
I've added a VECTOR MASK to this image. It's the white box to the right of the image in the LAYERS PALLET.
IMAGE 07
From the enlarged image, with the larger brush, I removed most of the parts I don't want.
IMAGE 08
Now I go in even closer to the edges so I can see more clearly what I need to remove.
IMAGE 09
Now I pick a smaller brush. I go with SIZE 5 for this (from the brush pallet - to the left of the image). The reason you change your brush size is that the larger the image is magnified, the larger the brush goes. So when you have a really big magnified section for detailing, you need a smaller brush so you can get in closer to the edges.
IMAGE 10
Here you can see how I can get closer to Jack's head without ruining the part I want to keep.
IMAGE 11
Now I go back to NORMAL VIEW so I can see if I got everything I need to or if there is still more detailing needed. I see that there are still some bits that have to be masked out because the image still looks choppy because of parts that shouldn't be there.
IMAGE 12
So I MAGNIFY portions that need work. You'll move your image around with either the scroll bar handles or the HAND TOOL. No need to go back to normal size and re-magnify.
IMAGE 13
Once I'm done doing the touch-ups, I go back to normal view to see if I got it all. I see that I have so now it's on to the next pix I want to add in.
IMAGE 14
I'm adding in Sawyer. This one has more to remove than the Jack image did.
IMAGE 15
Next I add the VECTOR MASK to Sawyer's layer.
IMAGE 16
Because there's a lot to remove from Sawyer's pix, I first go with a much bigger brush because it will take way too long to use a smaller one to get rid of the large sections I don't want. For this one I'm going with BRUSH SIZE 35. Again, be sure to use the SOFT EDGED BRUSH.
IMAGE 17
Here you can see that I've MASKED OUT most of the image that I don't want.
IMAGE 18
I MAGNIFY again the edges so I can see better when MASKING OUT what I don't want.
IMAGE 19
Now I pick a smaller brush. This time I'll go with a 9 SOFT EDGE BRUSH.
IMAGE 20
Here you can see how much smaller the brush is and how much easier it will be to get in close to the edge of Sawyer's face.
IMAGE 21
Oops! My brush slipped and I accidently masked out a part of Sawyer's face. That's OK because the beauty of masking is that the original image is still there so all I have to do is UNmask this portion to fix it. :D
IMAGE 22
I switch the colors (in the TOOLS PANEL on the left of the image) to WHITE. Just brush over the part that was masked out to bring it back. BLACK MASKS OUT and WHITE UNMASKS.
IMAGE 23
All fixed! :D
IMAGE 24
Now I continue to remove more, getting as close to the edge of Sawyer's face as I can.
IMAGE 25
Again I return to NORMAL VIEW so I can see how well I did. I see that there is still more to remove to make the image look good.
IMAGE 26
So I went in closer and removed more and now, back to NORMAL VIEW, I see that I got it right.
IMAGE 27
Now I view the image with the background of Kate to be sure I like where Jack and Sawyer are and that they look good against the background.
IMAGE 28
I've added a NEW LAYER above all of the images. I've decided that to make the pix look more realalistic, I need shadows behind the two men and against Kate since they're in front of her. The shadows will go on separate layers so that I can work on each one without disturbing the other. More on this later. The first one will be for Jack.
IMAGE 29
From my TOOLS PALLET, I pick the COLOR TOOL to get my FOREGROUND COLOR from the COLOR PICKER WINDOW. I'm going to go with black. NOTE: You do not have to have it set to WEB COLORS because monitors today can see more than the original limited amount of colors that were set for the web. So I type in 000000 in the bottom box with the #. 000000 = black. Then I click the OK button.
IMAGE 30
I pick a brush of 100 from the BRUSH PALLET and leave the OPACITY at 100% (in the LAYERS PALLET).
IMAGE 31
I paint the shadow over Jack's face and a bit outside the edge of his face. We'll remove the part on his face and keep the part outside the edge so that it wll look like the shadown comes from behind him.
IMAGE 32
Now I reduce the OPACITY of the shadow in the OPACITY guage at the top, right of the LAYERS PANEL. Notice how much lighter the black is now. You can play around with this to get the darkness/lightness you want. I've gone with 53%.
IMAGE 33
Now I add a VECTOR MASK to the shadow and mask out what I don't want on Jack's face.
IMAGE 34
I pick a SOFT EDGED BRUSH #35 to remove most of what's on Jack's face. I'll use a smaller brush and go in closer to get the very edge.
IMAGE 35
Now I've added another layer above the images and put Sawyer's shadow over his face. I repeat the steps I did for Jack's shadow.
IMAGE 36
Then I UNHIDE the text I had done earlier and the image is done! :D