 anonymous |
Photoshop Editing - turning background black Hi there, I was wondering if anyone can help me. I have some pics of babies feet etc and I have seen someone on this site turn the background to black in PS to make their pic look like it was taken in front of a black set. Now for the life of me can't find the pic to ask the photographer, but maybe you all could help. It was the photo of the childs foot with the gerbera in the centre. I remember her saying she took the background out in PS, but not sure how to do it without making the edges of the feet look fake. Any help would be much appreciated.
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Laura Roth |
Note: you may want to practice these techniques if you've never done them before. This may be the long way around, but it has a very nice effect if you're careful. Open a new image the size of your original photo and make the background color black. (I'm hoping you know about different features in Photoshop). Bring in your original picture as a new layer on top of the black background (either by dragging it or cut & paste). Add a layer mask to your photo layer. Make sure you have the mask selected in the Layers window. Next, use the tool that's dierctly under the Rectangular select tool. I forget what it's called, but if you right click on it (note, I am writing about the PS on a PC. Commands might be different if you use a MAC) if you right-click on that tool, you'll get an option for free-hand select... where you click on a starting point and everywhere you click after that wil be a new anchor. Basically, choose a starting point on the outline of what you want left in the picture and click on it. Then click a little farther down along the outline & your selection ine will anchor there as well. If you click on small enough intervals, you can easily approximate a smooth crurve. Basically, trace the outline of what you want in this manner until you can get back & connect the line at the starting point. Next, in the select menu, choose "select Inverse" or something like that (I apologize. I don't have the program in front of me right now, so I can only give approximations). This will select everything EXCEPT the part of the picture that you want. Next, under the menu bar at the top, you should see a "feather" option where you can enter a number of px.... try starting with 10 px. (you may need to set the feather amount before you make the selection, so you may want to practice first & see what happens) This will give you a gently blurred edge, not a false looking hard division. Once you set the amounth of feathering, use the black paint brush on the mask and you should see the picture disappear. The mask covers the picture, it does not erase it, so if at any point in time you decide you want part of the picture back, you can just use the white brush on the mask at that point in time. That part of the picture will reappear. Hope that helps.
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Laura Roth |
Also, if you're artistically inclinced and if you want to make it look more natural, you may choose to make the background a dark charcoal almost-black grey & then you can use the brush with the opacity at 30 to 50 % to add a few shadows underneath the foot/daisy by hand...
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anonymous |
Oh thanks Laura, I will print this out and have a practice, yes, I have some knowledge of PS and some great books to that have helped me. The foot/daisy photo wasn't mine, but I know the photographer who does own it used a PS technique and I have looked everywhere and just can't remember who it was. THank you for spending so much time typing the above out - it is much appreciated!
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Laura Roth |
Ok, now that I'm home & have the program in front of me.... The select tool you need is the polygonal lasso tool & yes, you have to set the feathering value BEFORE you go to all the trouble of selecting by hand. : )
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