9

ADVANCED SELECTION TECHNIQUES

t used to be that when I needed to make a fine-edged selection, I often wasnt sure which technique to use. But over the years, with a little patience, curiosity, and experimentation, Ive added various techniques and approaches to my repertoire for making professional selections of hair, delicate cloth, and intricate landscape scenes. Ive also learned that every mask I make teaches me valuable skills for the mask Ill make tomorrow. In this chapter, youll learn how to Take advantage of image differences Combine masks to silhouette challenging subjects Harness the power of the Apply and Calculate commands Add texture to images for creative effects When extracting fine details, youll obtain the best results if you use high-quality, high-resolution originalsones in which the figure is in sharp contrast to the background. So if you plan on taking someones picture for a composite, preparing the lighting, the point of view, and the background is essential. (For more information on creating successful composites, see Chapter 11, Image Concept and Execution.)

IMAGE CALCULATIONS
Under the Image menu youll find two useful commandsApply Image and Calculations. Before the introduction of layers in Photoshop 3.0, image compositing and controlling effects relied heavily on channel masking. The most advanced method to create fine-edged masks was to use the Image Calculation commands to combine and refine images and channels. Todaywith the use of layers and blending modesmany of their results can be achieved more easily. However, these commands still offer useful methods for creating image composites and for building masks that maintain fine tonal and edge detail. Because Image Calculations use interchannel math that compares channel values to create the results, they are often called chops (channel operations). Note
A discussion of Calculations would not be complete without a sincere tip of the hat to John Knoll, Kai Krause, David Biedny, Bert Monroy, and Bryan Guignard. It is with great appreciation that I learned from all of their lectures, books, articles, and online tutorials.

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The Apply Image and the Calculate commands have similarities and differences that make them more daunting to understand than they really need to be. The two commands share the following requirements: Images you want to calculate need to be open. You cant navigate to a closed file on your hard drive to use it during a calculate session. Images you want to calculate together need to be the exact same width and height (to the very pixel). With the booming popularity of digital cameras, this requirement is becoming easier and easier to meet. You can mix and match RGB, LAB, CMYK, and grayscale images using the Calculate command. Both commands can be used to move selections between files. In addition to the standard blending modes, both Apply Image and Calculate include the Add and Subtract blending modes (see the sidebar The Math behind Blending Modes for more information). The primary differences are: The Apply Image command uses the composite color image or single channel as its source to create color images or channels. It cannot create a new document, channel, or layer. The Calculate command lets you choose a source from any open image with the same image resolution, but it only uses a single grayscale channel. Calculate creates a new channel, black-and-white document, or an active selection, but never a color file. To be completely accurate, the Duplicate command is also a calculate function, and it is the fastest way to duplicate a fileespecially one with many layers and channels. Holding down (Option) [Alt] while selecting Image > Duplicate bypasses the duplicate window. (You also have to keep your mouse button down during this maneuver, if you release the mouse when the menu drops down, while holding

the Alt key, the menu disappears.) Because the Apply Image command overwrites the active source, I recommend you either duplicate the file before using Apply Image or make certain youre working on a copy of your original file.

Blending Mode Guide

The Calculate commands apply the math of the blend to the layer, channel, or composite to create the desired effect. It is essential to remember that 0 is the equivalent of black, 128 is the equivalent of gray, 255 is the equivalent of white, and that all blends compare pixel values to calculate the result. Normal: Combines the two sources based on opacity. Darkening Group: Neutral to white; will have no effect on light areas; the effect will be progressively stronger as the tones become darker. Darken: Dark pixel values replace light values. Multiply: Multiplies values less than 50% gray times each other, resulting in darker values while light areas are not affected. Color Burn: Results in a darker channel with increased contrast. Linear Burn: Is a strong combination of Multiply and Color Burn and forces dark values to pure black. Lightening Group: Neutral to black; will have no effect on dark areas; the effect will be progressively stronger as the tones become lighter. Lighten: The opposite of darken, it compares the two sources and replaces the darker pixels with lighter pixels. Screen: The opposite of multiply, results in a lighter channel while dark areas are not affected. Also reduces contrast. Color Dodge: Increases contrast of areas lighter than 50% grey while preserving black values. Linear Dodge: Is a combination of Screen and Color Dodge and forces light areas to pure white.

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Contrast Group: Neutral to 50% gray; will have no effect on 50% gray areas; and are all good for adding contrastspecifically, for making the dark values darker and the light values lighter. Overlay: Multiplies dark values and screens light values, which increases contrast but without clipping to pure white or black. Soft Light: A combination of dodge, which lightens the light values, and burn, which darkens the dark values. Adds less contrast than Overlay or Hard Light. Hard Light: Multiplies the darks and screens the light values and increases contrast dramatically. Vivid Light: Lightens the values above 50% gray by decreasing the contrast, and darkens the values below 50% gray by increasing contrast. Linear Light: Combining linear burn and linear dodge, this blend mode lightens the values above 50% gray by increasing the brightness, and it darkens the values below 50% gray by decreasing brightness. Pin Light: Combines darken and lighten to replace pixel values. Always very contrasty. Used for special effects and more infrequently to create masks. Hard Mix: Lighter values lighten and darker values darken to the point of threshold and posterization.

Comparative Group: Neutral to black. Difference: Reveals identical pixel values as black, similar values as dark and opposite values as light to white values. Exclusion: Similar to difference but with less contrast. Blending with black produces no change and white inverts the compared values. Have I memorized all of these blending modes? No. But I do know which general group to start with to darken, lighten, enhance contrast, and so on. Often just getting into the tonal ballpark makes for a good start, and then you can choose a related blend to see if the effect is creating the desired effect.

The Apply Image Settings

The Apply Image is the smaller of the two commands. It always uses the active image as its target, meaning the image that is active when you select Image > Apply Image will always be on the receiving end of the Apply Image command. Before we use Apply Image to make masks, an overview of the terms as shown in figure 9.39 will be helpful.

figure 9.39 Combination Group: Found only in the Apply Image and Calculate commands. Add: Adding light values results in lighter to bright white values. Black-value areas remain black (0+0=0). The Scale factor is any number between 1.000 and 2.000. The Offset value lets you lighten or darken the pixels in the destination channel by any brightness value between -255 and +255. Negative values darken the image; positive values lighten the image. Subtract: Subtracts the pixel values from the corresponding pixel values and uses scale and offset as in Add.
The options in the Apply Image dialog box.

Source: Pull-down menu used to select from the other open images to be processed with the active image. Layer: Determines which individual layer or merged layers of the source will be used. Merged is only available if both files are in the same color mode. Channel: Determines if the results will go into the merged color file or into one individual channel. If the layer you choose has transparency (such as a text layer), transparency will also be a choice.

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Target: Is always the document that was active when you invoked the Apply Image command. When making masks (as we will do later in this section), the name of the active channel will appear here. Blending: The mathematical formulas used to combine the layers or channels. See the sidebar The Math Behind Blending Modes for more information. Scale and Offset: Only active when Add or Subtract are chosen in the Blending option. The Scale factor is any number between 1.000 and 2.000a higher Scale value darkens the image. The Offset value lets you lighten or darken the pixels in the destination channel by any brightness value between +255 and 255. Negative values darken the image; positive values lighten the image. Opacity: Controls the percentage of the source used in the calculation process. The lower the percentage the more the target is used. Preserve Transparency: If the target layer has transparency, use this checkbox to protect it from being effected. Mask: Lets you control where the calculation takes place, with a mask from any open image that has the same pixel resolution. Invert: Switches tonal values from within the Apply Image command. Preview: Lets you monitor the effect of all the above settings. Thank goodness! In a nutshell, before using the Apply Image command, make sure the image, layer, or channel you want to composite or make a mask for is active. Use the pull-down menus to create the desired results.
Dynamic Graphics, Inc. Close up of the mask

Close up of the original

Using the Apply Image Command on One Channel

Can you imagine trying to outline the fine details in Big Ben? Even just thinking about it makes me nervous. But the Apply Image command can separate the tower from the clouds in no time at all, as shown in figure 9.40.

Close up of the isolated tower with all the details intact

figure 9.40
Masking out the clouds while maintaining the filigree and gargoyles is a perfect challenge for the Apply Image command. ch6_bigben.jpg

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1. Before entering the Apply Image command, inspect the image color channels (Cmd 1, 2, 3) [Ctrl 1, 2, 3]. In this example, the blue channel reveals the most tonal difference between the tower and the clouds (figure 9.41).

2. Duplicate the blue channel by dragging it down to the Create New Channel button on the Channels palette. 3. With the blue channel copy active, select Image > Apply Image. Since the blue channel had the most tonal difference, we will blend the blue channel into the blue channel copy, which is the source shown in figure 9.42. By changing the Blend to Color Burn, the contrast is greatly increased.

Red channel

Green channel

figure 9.42
Blending the channel possessing the most contrast with itself using Color Burn increases the contrast dramatically.

Blue channel

figure 9.41
Inspect the image channels to identify the one with most tonal contrast.

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4. Very often, Ill repeat the Apply Image with the same channels but experiment with the Blend to create even whiter whites and darker darks. Choose Image > Apply Image with Source: Blue Channel of Merged Layer, and select Hard Light. As you can see in figure 9.43 the tower is very dark, and the clouds are getting lighter and lighter.

5. To boost the contrast even more, use Levels and move the shadow value to the right, the Highlight slider to left and the Midtones slider to the right to force the remaining light areas to white and the dark areas to black, as shown in figure 9.44.

figure 9.43
Repeating the Apply Image command creates more contrast for separating the tower from the clouds.

figure 9.44
Use Levels to make the white areas pure white and the dark areas pure black.

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6. Use the Polygon Lasso tool to select the interior of the tower and fill with black to remove the inside filigree from the mask. Choose Select > Deselect, and then paint with white to clean the sky (figure 9.45). 7. Now the tower is black and the clouds are white. For the mask to select the tower, choose Image > Adjustments > Invert (Cmd + I) [Ctrl + I] to flip the tones. Return to the Layers palette and choose Select > Load Selection > Blue copy. Select > Feather with 1 and choose Edit > Copy. Select File > New and click OK. Edit > Paste to drop the silhouetted Big Ben onto a blank file (figure 9.46).

figure 9.46
The isolated Big Ben.

All in all, isolating Big Ben with all of its wonderful gargoyles and gothic filigree was accomplished quickly and easily with the Apply Image command. Using Apply Image to combine identical channels into themselves is a good place to start to learn how the Apply Image command works.

figure 9.45
Clean up the mask to remove the vestiges of the clouds and block out the remains of the clock.

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Photoshop Masking & Compositing

Using the Apply Image Command on Multiple Channels

I wanted to replace the drab studio background in figure 9.47 to place the young woman into a more interesting sunset scene, as shown in figure 9.48. The Apply Image command can be used to mathematically blend the one channel into itself, or, as in this example, to blend two channels to make a mask.
ch6_wavy_hair.jpg ch6_sunset.jpg

Isolating Soft-Focus Hair 1. Before entering the Apply Image dialog box, inspect the color channels of the portrait to see which ones have the best tonal information. In this example both the red and the green channels contain valuable tonal information (figure 9.49). Because the green channel offers the best tonal differentiation, duplicate it by dragging it down to the Create New Channel button on the Channels palette.

Red

figure 9.47
The studio backdrop doesnt do the woman justice.

Green

Dynamic Graphics, Inc.

figure 9.48
Replacing the background makes the image more interesting.
Blue

figure 9.49
Inspect the color channels to identify the channels with the best tonal contrast for building the mask.

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2. The red channel contains good tonal separation in the highlights between the studio backdrop and the models hair, which we can take advantage of by combining the red channel with the green. With the green channel copy active, select Image > Apply Image and set the source to red channel. To increase the channel contrast, blend the red channel using the Hard Light blending mode, as shown in figure 9.50, to create the initial mask.

3. If needed, you can repeat the Apply Image command with the same or a new setting to enhance the mask even more. In this case, I used Apply Image again to blend in the red channel of the merged layer with Overlay (figure 9.51). In no time at all, I have a very good start for a mask that maintains the hair detail.

figure 9.50
Blending the red channel into a duplicate of the green channel using the Hard Light blending mode increases the contrast.

figure 9.51
Repeating the Apply Image command increases the contrast even more; in just two steps, youre very close to a perfect mask.

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Photoshop Masking & Compositing

4. Open the Info palette and add Color Samplers (nested under the eyedropper in the toolbar) to the white area on the upper left and upper right corners (figure 9.52). I changed my readout to Grayscale by clicking on the small triangle under the eyedropper in the Info Palette. K stands for black and is the clearest readout for verifying masks. 0 equals pure white, and 100 equals pure black.

figure 9.53
The Dodge tool, set to Highlight, cleans up lighter areas of masks very quickly.

figure 9.52
Measuring the white areas using the Info palette.

5. With a low pressure setting and a large soft-edged brush, use the Dodge tool, set to Highlights, to lighten the background to pure white (figure 9.53). Lighten gently and avoid destroying delicate hair information at this stage. You will have a chance to refine the mask when the images come together in the composite, which has the advantage of seeing the effect of the mask in combination with the new background. 6. Select the interior of the woman (figure 9.54) and fill with black to create the results in figure 9.55. Tip
When selecting large areas of a mask with the Lasso or Marquee tools, make sure the feather is set to 0 before making the selection. Using a feathered selection tool may impact the edge quality of the mask in unexpected and undesired ways.

figure 9.54
Without going too close to the edge of the hair, select the interior portion of the figure and carefully draw down along her shoulder.

figure 9.55
To block out the womans face so that it isnt affected in the composite, fill with black.

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Compositing the Woman into the Sunset 1. Return to the RGB channel. Choose Select > Load Select and choose Green copy (figure 9.56). 2. Open the sunset image and use the Move tool to drag the sunset over to the woman image (figure 9.57) and click the Add Layer Mask button to create the initial composite (figure 9.58). The image doesnt look too bad for a preliminary composite. But the light halos caused by the lighter studio backdrop around her hair are distracting, and the sunset is too strong, which distracts from her.

figure 9.57
Dragging the new background to the womans image maintains the active selection.

figure 9.58 figure 9.56

Loading the green copy mask changes it into an active selection. Clicking on the Layer Mask button transfers the selection into a layer mask.

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3. By adjusting the opacity of the sunset layer to 65%, its color dominance is reduced, which allows the focus of the image to be the woman and not the sunset (figure 9.59).

click on the Mask button in the Blend box, the interface contains a total of twelve pull-down menus and three invert checkboxes to create practically innumerable possible combinations. No wonder people shy away from Calculations!

figure 9.60
The options in the Calculations dialog box.

As described previously, many of the parameters for Apply Image and Calculations are identical. Working from top to bottom, here they are: figure 9.59
Adjusting the layer opacity of the sunset mutes its garish color and helps blend the images together.

The Apply Image command works extremely well on large files. Once youve tried it a few times and become familiar with the terms and effects, youll find yourself using it often. Of course, youll need to experiment with the channels and blending modes that work best for your own images. In Chapter 13, Creative Compositing, well use the Apply Image command to create very surreal and surprising composites.

Source 1 and 2: A source is an individual channel or grayscale merged channel from an open images layer, layer transparency, channel, or selection. Imagine it as if Source 1 is being applied on top of Source 2. Blending: Is divided into three areas blending, opacity, and mask. Blending works exactly the same way as Apply Image and as discussed in the sidebar Blending Mode Guide. Opacity controls the opacity of Source 1. The mask option lets you control the calculation through an alpha channel, an image channel, and an active selection to protect parts of Source 2 from being affected by the calculation. Result: This option indicates where the result should goa new alpha channel, a new document, or an active selection. Remember, Source 1 is processed through Source 2 via the blend and mask options to create the result.

Working with the Calculations Command

The Calculation command processes single channels to create a new channel, a black-and-white document, or an active selection but never a color file. As you can see in figure 9.60, its interface is divided into four primary sectionsSource 1, Source 2, Blending, and Result. In addition, if you