Help with editing

[mattchewone]

Hi,

Does anyone have any guides or no of any tutorials of ways in which to remove a background with people in the foreground and quite complicated edges.

I took a few shots today for a friend who teaches Karate, nothing major as i wasnt sure of what was wanted or what the place i would be shooting in would be like. It turns out its in a school hall and there is all sorts of distracting objects in the background. I took a few and i would like to practice taking away the BG although i have never tried this so any help is very much appreciated.

Matt

 

[Chappers]

Matt

Depends on how complicated the background is. When things get complicated I try and use the pen tool in photoshop. Use the path to make a selection then a mask

Like a lot of users I'm self taught, but I found a couple of Tutorials on the web that might help.

http://www.elated.com/articles/cat/photoshop-paths-pen-tool/
http://graphicssoft.about.com/od/photoshop/l/blrbps_4abfly.htm

If you want a program that does it all for you have a look at Corels "Knock Out", or even better On Ones Software's Mask Pro. Both have free downloads.

Mask Pro is expensive but on fine details such as tree branches it does a really good job

 

[Mustard shots]

Personally I love using the pen tool, but for people and nature I find it a bit tricky to get a good result as they've rarely got sharp edges. May be better to either go to quick mask mode (bottom of the menu near foreground/background colours) and then use the paintbrush to create your selection, or duplicate the layer and blur/knock out/paint/delete etc the dupe and selectively show through to the original if need be. This is where a graphics tablet comes in very handy!