Photoshop Compositing Secrets - Matt Kloskowski [37]
STEP THREE:
Click the Refine Edge button in the Options Bar to go into the Refine Edge dialog. I chose the white option to view the selection on, since my final image will have a white background. Photos like this are probably one of the easiest to select, since we don’t have to worry about all of the hair detail all of the time (sometimes it’s still a problem, as you’ll see in a minute). Most of the time, even if we carry over some of the white background near the hair, we’ll never see it, because we’re putting them on the same color background. Set the Radius to 6, the Output To setting to Layer Mask, and click OK to close the dialog.
STEP FOUR:
The family is now selected on their original layer with a layer mask in the Layers panel. Let’s see if we need to refine the mask at all. Go ahead and Command-click (PC: Ctrl-click) on the Create a New Layer icon at the bottom of the Layers panel to add a new layer below the family layer. Then go to Edit>Fill and set the Use setting to Black. I’m using black here because the woman on the left is eventually going to be in front of a man with a dark blue jacket. This’ll give me a similar background, so I can decide if the edge around her needs any more refining. Click OK, and now you’ll see every tiny bit of detail that doesn’t fit in.
STEP FIVE:
Before you start working on the layer mask to remove any white areas, think about the final image for a minute. In this example, I know they’re going to be put on the far right of the entire group. And since we’re moving them to another white background, all we need to worry about is how the left edge of the woman and her hair look, since that’s the only area that’ll intersect with anyone else in the photo. The guy on the right is going to go from one white background to another white background, with nothing else behind him, so there’s no need to worry about any fringing there.
STEP SIX:
Zoom in to the neck area of the woman. You may see some white still showing through her hair. If you do, click once on the layer mask to target it. Select the Brush tool (B) from the Toolbox, set your Foreground color to black, and paint with a very small, soft-edged brush to get rid of it. Do the same for any other white areas that still show through (except for the hair). Like I mentioned earlier, though, don’t worry about this part if the person is not going to intersect with another person in the final image.
STEP SEVEN:
Now, we’re back to that overall fringing problem that we’ll usually get from the original background. Zoom in on her hair on the left side of the photo. There’s still some fringing around the edges. As soon as we place her over another person in the photo, especially someone with a dark jacket on, that fringe will stick out like a sore thumb.
STEP EIGHT:
We covered this problem back in Chapter 1. So far, we’ve had a lot of luck by putting the selected area on its own layer and going to Layer>Matting>Defringe. Usually, we enter 1 pixel and it looks great. Not in this photo, though. Instead, we’re going to use the Inner Glow trick from Chapter 1. First, let’s put them onto a regular layer without a layer mask, so Command-click (PC: Ctrl-click) on the layer mask to load it as a selection. Click once on the layer thumbnail to target it. Then press Command-J (PC: Ctrl-J) to copy the selected area onto its own layer. Once you have that new layer, click on the little Eye icon to the left of the layer below to hide it, since we don’t need it. Now, you have them on a blank layer with nothing else.
STEP NINE:
Click on the Add a Layer Style icon at the bottom of the Layers panel and choose Inner Glow. When the