Photoshop Compositing Secrets - Matt Kloskowski [13]
STEP FOUR:
This works great, but it does leave us with one tiny problem. The Inner Glow effect is applied to the entire photo, so even the edges of her jacket get the glow. Now, in this photo, I actually kinda like it. I think it works, since she’s got so much natural light coming from behind her to begin with. But if it doesn’t work for your particular photo, then we can always remove it from the parts we don’t want it to affect. Go to Layer>Layer Style>Create Layer. This puts the effect onto its own layer, so it’s no longer a layer style.
STEP FIVE:
Click on this new layer to make it active, then click on the Add Layer Mask icon at the bottom of the Layers panel. Select the Brush tool (B) and set your Foreground color to black. Then, just paint away the inner glow from any areas you don’t want it to affect. Again, this technique is my favorite and it’s the one I turn to the most when selecting hair.
STEP SIX:
I just wanted to let you know this works for dark hair, too. You just have to change a few settings. Here’s another photo with crazy hair. In fact, I’m not sure it gets any crazier than this. I used the same exact steps as before to select her and her hair from the background. The subject is selected on her original layer with a layer mask and then I added a white layer below. Since it’s white, everything looks great.
STEP SEVEN:
But look at what happens when I place her on a dark background. You’ll see remnants of the brighter background around the edges of her hair. Just a quick aside: In all honesty, I’d never place her on a black background to begin with. I just don’t think it looks right. She’s so brightly lit that she fits in perfectly with a bright background. To me, she looks fake and “pasted in” on the black background, regardless of what’s happening with the edges of her hair. That said, let’s try out the Inner Glow trick just to show you it works here, too.
STEP EIGHT:
Add the Inner Glow layer style just like before. But, this time, first change the Blend Mode from Screen to Multiply (at the top of the dialog), then click on the color swatch to open the Color Picker. Use the Eyedropper to sample a color from her hair and adjust the Size and Opacity settings.
So, for brightly colored hair, use the Screen blend mode (the default) and for dark hair, use Multiply.
Method #2: Layer Matting Options
STEP ONE:
Another method for removing that fringe is to use the Matting options found under the Layer menu. You can’t use them on a layer with a layer mask, though, so you’ll want to make sure you’ve got your selection as good as possible before you do this. So, let’s go back to our blonde subject and Command-click (PC: Ctrl-click) on the layer mask to load it as a selection. Then, click on the layer thumbnail (not the mask) to target it and press Command-J (PC: Ctrl-J) to copy the selected area onto its own layer. Click on the Eye icon to the left of the original layer with the layer mask to hide them, so only the top copy layer is showing.
STEP TWO:
Go to Layer>Matting>Remove Black Matte. This removes those gray edges and sometimes it’s amazing how well it does. It does, though, have two bad side effects, which both affect this photo: (1) it tends to make the darker edges of the hair really bright, like it did here, and (2) sometimes it fries the edges of the hair—meaning they become really crispy. I know it sounds funny to say they’re fried or crisp, but it just tends to make the edges jagged and overly contrasty in certain places. Now, if the edges appear brighter (rather than darker, as they did in this example), then try using Layer>Matting>Remove White Matte.
Method #3: Dodge and Burn
STEP ONE:
I usually use the Dodge and Burn trick as a follow-up to one of the previous techniques. It’s really simple for fixing just a few small stray hairs and not the entire head. In our example,