Advanced Techniques For Selecting Hair

Advanced techniques for selecting hair
Learn advanced techniques to cut out hair from

complicated backgrounds.
What you learned: Mask hair, and paint in hair strands using hair from
another image
Select the person
 Open an image of a person, and select the layer that contains the
person—the portrait layer.
 In the Properties panel, go to Quick Actions and click Remove
Background. This automatically creates a layer mask that hides the
background around the person.
 Alternatively, you could use Select > Subject or the Quick
Selection tool to select the person, and then click the Add Layer Mask
button at the bottom of the Layers panel to make a mask from your
selection.
Fine-tune the layer mask
1. With the layer mask thumbnail on the portrait layer selected,
choose Select > Select and Mask.
2. In the Select and Mask workspace, use the sliders to refine the
edge of the layer mask. Choose View Mode > On Black. Then drag the
Smooth slider to the right to minimize jaggedness on the mask edge.
3. Soften the mask edges by dragging the feather slider to the right.
4. Choose Output To > Layer Mask, and click OK.
5. Go back into the Select and Mask workspace to focus on masking
the hair. Click the Select and Mask button again.
6. Select the Refine Edge Brush tool, and drag over the edge of the
hair.
7. Drag the Shift Edge slider to the right to move the mask edge
inward and hide imperfections.
8. Click OK to close Select and Mask. Don’t worry if the mask is not
perfect. Painting in digital hair will make the result look more realistic.
Create a custom hair brush
Sometimes you’ll get better results if you use hair from another
image to create and paint in strands of hair. Find a photo with a
solid background that has a lot of contrast with the hair. Then
create a custom brush out of the hair.
1. With the Crop tool, crop the hair photo so that the only area visible
is the hair that you want to turn into a brush.
2. Remove the color by choosing Image > Adjustments > Desaturate.
3. Choose Image > Adjustments > Levels, and drag the Input Levels
sliders to turn the background white and the hair black.
4. Select the Dodge tool, set the Range to Highlights, and paint on
any gray areas in the background to make them white.
5. Select the Burn tool, set the Range to Shadows, and paint over the
hair to make it darker.
6. Choose Edit > Define Brush Preset to make the black and white
hair image into a brush.
Paint in digital hair using your new custom brush
1. Back in the original portrait photo, click the Create New Layer
button to create a new layer.
2. Drag the new layer below the portrait layer.
3. With the Brush tool active, hold down Alt (Windows) or Option
(MacOS) to temporarily switch over to the Eyedropper tool. Click on the
hair to sample a hair color.
4. Use the left and right bracket keys ([ ]) on the keyboard to resize
your hair brush tip and match it to the portrait image.
5. Click once to paint hair on the new layer.
6. Press Control+T (Windows) or Command+T (MacOS) to
transform and distort the hair to better match the image.
7. Repeat this process a few more times until you are happy with the
results.
Tip: Don’t use just a single color for the hair that you paint in. Use
as many colors as possible that are similar to the subject’s hair to
create more realistic hair strands.
Advanced techniques for replacing a

dull sky
Replace a dull sky in a photo with a more dramatic sky
with Blend If.
What you learned: Use Blend If sliders to replace the sky in a photo
Set up the new sky and a reflection of the sky
1. With the Rectangular Marquee tool, select the sky. Then click the
Add Layer Mask button to create a mask that hides everything but the
selected sky.
2. Select the Move tool, and drag the sky layer up until it is about
where the sky in the original image is.
3. Duplicate the sky layer by pressing Control+J (Windows) or
Command+J (MacOS).
4. Flip the duplicate sky layer upside down by pressing Control+T
(Windows) or Command+T (MacOS), right-clicking the layer, and
choosing Flip Vertical.
5. Drag the inverted sky layer down until it lines up with the bottom
of the original sky layer.
Use Blend If to reveal pixels from the underlying layers
1. You’ll use the Blend If feature to replace the sky. First, identify the
best channel to use with Blend If by going to the Channels panel and
clicking through the Red, Green, and Blue channels. Look for the
channel with the most contrast between the light sky and the darker
foreground. In a daytime photo with lots of sky, this is likely to be the
Blue channel.
2. Take note of the channel with the most contrast. Then click the
RGB channel and return to the Layers panel.
3. In the Layers panel, select the layer that contains the original sky
you want to replace, and drag that layer above the two sky layers.
4. Click the FX icon at the bottom of the Layers panel, and choose
Blending Options to open the Layer Style dialog box.
5. In the Layer Style dialog box, click the Blend If dropdown menu
and choose Blue in order to reference brightness levels in the Blue
channel.
6. Still in the Layer Style dialog box, go to This Layer and drag the
white slider to the left to reveal the new sky. This hides the original sky
on the selected layer, revealing the more dramatic sky images on the
layers below. The original sky is hidden because its brightness values in
the Blue channel are higher than the value the white slider is now
pointing to.
Tip: Alt-click (Windows) or Option-click (MacOS) as you drag the
white slider to split the slider in half. Then spread the half-sliders to
create a smoother transition between hidden and visible areas in the
image.
7. Click OK to close the Layer Style dialog box.

Bring back details you want to keep
Using Blend If to hide the sky might also hide other details in the
original image that you want to keep.
To bring those details back into view:
1. Duplicate the original image layer by selecting it in the Layers
panel and pressing Control+J (Windows) or Command+J (MacOS).
2. Place the duplicate layer above all other layers.
3. Remove the layer style from the duplicate layer by right-clicking
the double-square icon on the duplicate layer and choosing Clear Layer
Style.
4. Using the Quick Selection tool, drag across the details that you
want to keep. Then click the Add Layer Mask button to create a mask
that hides everything on the duplicate layer except the selected areas.
This can bring back into view some details that were hidden by Blend If
on the original image layer.
Match luminosity
1. Click the Create New Adjustment Layer button in the Layers
panel, and select Levels.
2. Drag the Levels Adjustment layer above the two sky layers.
3. In the Properties panel, drag the black Output Levels slider to the
right to brighten the new sky until it matches the brightness of the rest of
your composite image.
4. Finish up by dragging the gray Input Levels slider to adjust the
contrast of the new sky.

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Advanced techniques for selecting hair

Learn advanced techniques to cut out hair from

Advanced techniques for replacing a

7. Click OK to close the Layer Style dialog box.

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