When you mask an object out in Photoshop, it may happen that you miss a few spots, no matter how hard you try. In this video, Jesús Ramirez of Photoshop Training Channel shares a simple tip, yet effective that will help you avoid this mistake every next time you’re making a cutout.[Read More…]
How to mask anything in Lightroom in a few seconds
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Lightroom’s Auto Mask option is a useful tool that can save you a lot of time. But this video from Signature Edits shows you how you can make the Auto Mask feature even faster and more efficient. This way you’ll be able to mask even very complex images in a few seconds, which will save you even more post-processing time.
How to use channels to create masks in Photoshop – a comprehensive tutorial
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If you are doing any kind of compositing or digital work that requires masking and object extraction you owe it to yourself to watch this video. Stefan Kohler of RawExchange is giving an 80 minutes tour of masking and object extraction that goes from the very basics of masking all the way to techniques used high-end retouchers. And best of all, it’s 100% free. just head over and watch it on youtube.
10 tips to make selections that cut out anything in Photoshop
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Photoshop’s selection tools seem to evolve and change with every new update. Techniques and technology evolve to make selections a little easier than they were before. At least, that’s the theory, sometimes they just get more frustrating. But, there’s still no one technique that works for everything.
This video from Nathaniel Dodson at Tutvid is a long one. At 37 minutes, you’re not going to be finding any instant fix magic bullets. But, he goes through several different selection methods to explain how they all works, how to use them and what kind of images they work best on.
Ultimate guide to selections: the Pen tool
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I know there are a lot people out there who want to be better at Photoshop – heck, I’ve been doing this for almost half of my life and I want to be better! Well, I was really thinking about it and it dawned on me that more often than any other tip, I’m telling people they really should master the pen tool. It is hands down the most advanced and precise selection tool and if you boil Photoshop down to its simplest form, it’s a SELECTIVE photo editing software. So I thought to myself, “Hey self, why not really dive deep into selection tools – how to do them, when to use which one, and why they are so dang important?”
How to get killer selections with Channels and Vivid Light
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Ever since wanting to focus on colour in my images I’ve found that often times due to budget or location, that I just quite simply cannot get the colours I’d like right in the camera. This means that I’ll often have to change colours in post and that, of course, in turn requires decent selections! There’s a million ways to do that in Photoshop, but I want to give you a kick start guide right here with a basic setup that I truly believe will change your life in selection if you’re unsure of this process.
Your Next Smart Selection Could Be Powered By A Neural Network
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Admit it! object masking sucks. It’s not that it is impossible, even the hardest selections and masks can be created with some work (and some methods require less work that others). But, in general, masking is a hard and tedious work.
Researchers in the The Chinese University of Hong Kong working with Adobe Research are now showing some work that uses Convolutional Neural Networks to successfully mask portraits. The paper bears the boring name “Automatic Portrait Segmentation for Image Stylization” [PDF link], and it shows how selection and masking can significantly improve if the software knows that it’s making a portrait.
Open Letter – How Absolutely Amazing Remask Can Be With These 5 Improvements
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I am a big advocate for doing everything retoucher needs to do with a few tools as possible. Masking is one of this things that can be perfectly done on Photoshop. There is a range of tools and ways to approach masking from very basic raw selections to precisely calculated and adjusted masks. So you don’t need anything else except Photoshop for the masking in vast majority of cases.
Unfortunately, Topaz Remask masking technology is very good, super precise and easier to use with complex selections than Photoshop. It’s hard to resist not to use this software.
Adding texture easily to your backgrounds in Photoshop
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Not very long ago I got to visit my buddy Joseph Parry. We drank (quite a lot of beer), we ate (lots of chocolate brownies) and we took photos. Like any normal person, when they go visit a friend I brought with me a cowboy outfit. Wait! What, that’s not normal!!?? Well welcome to my world.
Anyway, I got Joseph to don the cowboy outfit, which suited his manly yet strangely conditioned soft beard, and we set up to shoot a portrait. As part of the setup Joseph had recently bought a Gravity Backdrop which we were going to use as the background. For me, this was the first time using an actual hand printed, textured, background and I was stunned by how awesome it made the images look straight from camera (and of course you can fake it, but it is no longer out of camera). It gave us a great base to work from, the result of said shoot being the image below.
Using Masks and Channels For Object Extraction
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Being a pretty diverse tool, Photoshop suggests many ways to accomplish each task. And each has its pros and cons. One of the more powerful tools in photoshop is masks. It is probably also one of the more complex tools. We are going to tackle making today, and hopefully making them a bit less complex.
