Cutting out complex elements

[ben_pike]

<p>I am sure that this general topic has been asked before, however I have been unable to find an exact method through searching.<br>

I need to cut out an Old English Sheepdog and paste it into another photo (shades of black, white and grey with a very complex edge). The sheepdog now deceased, so I can't reshoot. The dog is currently against a complex, but predominantly green background and the target shot is a wedding group in colour.<br>

Whatever I try, the result looks fake. Is there an easy way to do this task? I am not normally a fan of this type of manipulation, hence I am not confident on how to get the very best results.<br>

I will be using PS4 and the Canon suite of applications as necessary. I do not have a tablet only a mouse. Any help would be much appreciated.<br>

Thanks in advance.</p>

[ben_goren]

<p>Ben,</p>

 

<p>First, it would help greatly help to see the two pictures. Small, low-res versions would be just

fine.</p>

 

<p>Second, I would strongly recommend taking a trip to your local library and / or bookstore and

looking for a book on advanced Photoshop masking techniques. It’s a very challenging

subject, and it may well be that the proper approach to your job would take a couple chapters (or

more) to explain how to do.</p>

 

<p>Lastly, even Photoshop can’t work miracles. Many times this kind of photomontage

winds up looking fake because the lighting is radically different between the two scenes, and

Photoshop really can’t fix that. A far superior approach in such a case is to do a rough

mockup of what you want and hand that plus the originals to a painter whose work you admire and

let the artist create an original work of art for you.</p>

 

<p>Cheers,</p>

 

<p>b&</p>

[howard_m]

<p>you could try any of the selection tools (magnetic lasso, one of the 'wand' or color range w/ limited fuzz), create a baseline mask and then optimize the mask. Let the image work for you; if you say that the background is mostly green, then select color range may be your best bet but so could one of the lasso/wand depending on contrast, edge sharpness etc.</p>

<p>many volumes have been written about PS masking, selection and compositing techniques.</p>

[charlesheckel]

<p>Two suggestions:</p>

<p>To begin with, duplicate your original of the sheepdog to another layer and butcher it with Levels and Hue/Saturation adjustments to get maximum contrast between the sheepdog and the background. You can probably use dodging and burning in to increase contrast right at the edge. Use selection tools on this butchered layer to get a precise outline, then click on your original layer to get the sheepdog in his original glory inside that outline, work a ctl-J to put him on a new layer, and add a solid layer just beneath it of color similar to your wedding scene.</p>

<p>You'll probably notice that the sheepdog has a green fringe from color spill from the original green background. You can kill this with Select->Modify->Border and a Hue/Saturation adjustment. You will also notice spotty areas on the edge of your selection which can be cleaned up with the Eraser or finessed with the Blur or Smudge tools. When done, you can Move your sheepdog to your wedding picture. He will look a little more at home, but if the lighting is not consistent with the original scene, you may need to work a transformation, flipping his image to work better with the original lighting. You may also need Curves manipulations to make his sensitometric curve agree better with the wedding scene.</p>

<p>Hope this gets you a little closer to what you want. The name of the game is masking and compositing, in case you want to Google additional tutorials. It takes a surprising amount of skill to pull these things off. Good luck!</p>

[ben_pike]

<p>Thanks for your responses, I will attach some low res files in case that helps, but looks like it is a complex task beyond the scope of a forum thread.</p><div></div>

[ben_pike]

<p>The to shot</p><div></div>

[henry_s3]

<p>Just had a quick stab at it - with emphasis on 'quick. I presume this is the sort of thing you mean? The outline of the dog should be more precise but if you put it against a good place on the grass, it should not entail toooooo much work.</p>

[henry_s3]

<p>Sorry, the pic was too big and didn't upload.</p><div></div>

[ben_pike]

<p>Thanks Henry, looks better than my attempt which I had to convert to B&W to make it look almost right. What technique did you use?</p>

[henry_s3]

<p>Did more or less what Charles suggested but used channels. As the background of the dog is mostly green maybe you could also use a green screen programme - I expect you'd have to touch-up the background to get rid of the yellow leaves etc. Or just cut out the dog and then green screen. Google 'green screen' or 'blue screen' and perhaps there is a demo which doesn't watermark the final pic. Alternatively, I know people who use Character Studio (I believe it's freeware - again google it) for one offs but they would never admit to it! There are also lots of vidclips on YouTube showing you how to mask, but hairy dogs - like people with fluffy hair - are pretty time-consuming. As I wrote earlier, place the dog carefully and the masking doesn't have to be too exact. Of course it depends on what size print you want to make. What do you mean when you write 'convert to B&W'? Did you make a copy of the dog pic, go into Channels and then find the pic with the most amount of contrast (most probably blue)? I'd be interested in seeing your final version! Best of luck - and Happy New Year!</p>

[tom_mann1]

<p>Since the 2nd image was highly compressed, had blown highlights, etc., I did my best to fix up its JPG artifacts, contrast, color, sharpness a bit before compositing in the dog.</p>

<p>I then used Asiva Selection to select the dog by selecting on the relatively unsaturated colors of his fur, and then painting out anything else that was accidentally selected using this simple criterion. Made a 2nd selection with Asiva Select by selecting on greens. Inverted that selection and intersected it with the 1st selection to refine the selection of the edge of the dog's fur. Feathered the final selection by a fraction of a pixel to make it blend better with the 2nd image.</p>

<p>Next, I cut out the dog from the 1st image, flipped him horizontally, then skew transformed him (LHS up, RHS down) to make his perspective appropriate to placement near the RHS edge of the frame. Scaled him to an appropriate size, and used a slight curves adjustment on him to make his tonal values blend into the 2nd image.</p>

<p>If I was doing this job "for real", I probably would have put a slight, very diffuse shadow under the dog and adjusted the lighting on the dog a bit to agree better with the lighting on the people.</p>

<p>The result of my quick and dirty job is really quite grubby, but it will give you an idea of a general approach that can be taken and the sorts of result that can be achieved, especially if you have access to the original pix and can develop better files to work with before you even think about doing any compositing.</p>

<p>BTW, if you are not used to using the native selection tools in PS for compositing, you can always spend a bit on a selection tool designed precisely for tasks such as this. Examples of these include OnOne Software's "Mask Pro" and Vertus' "Fluid Mask".</p>

<p>Cheers,</p>

<p>Tom M</p>

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