[Boyd Hawkins]

Darby, once again…very helpful information. Thanks.

Another rookie question…how do I get a layer mask directly on the layer I am trying to mask? The only way I have been able to do this so far is to add an adjustment layer and put the mask in that layer.

So if you put a layer mask on the Adjustment Layer, the mask will only affect the adjustment layer. The white portions of the mask will cause the Levels adjustment to affect layers below it, while the black portions will prohibit the Levels adjustment from affecting those below it. This won’t have any effect on the lower layers’ transparency though.

When I had it set up like this, with the mask on the levels adjustment layer and the image below, it did mask out the background.

Thanks again for your help….Boyd

[Boyd Hawkins]

Darby, thank you once again. This is very helpful information.

I read from several sources to adjust the mask, but I could never get it to work. When I first started to do the mask, I made a copy layer of my base image to work with. Then I added a Levels adjustment layer above it, which had the ability to receive the mask. I loaded the mask, but was trying to adjust it using the levels adjustment in the same layer with the mask, which did not seem to do anything. I later merged the image layer and the Levels Adjustment layer together (Is this ok to do?). Should the mask be on the same layer as the image itself? If so, is there another way to get the mask on the image layer directly?

With the instructions you gave me, I was able to minimize the residue I was seeing from the background…Thanks!

I have been using Smart Objects and it does help to clean things up. I will remember to expand my use of them.

Thanks again, Boyd.

[Boyd Hawkins]

Thanks Darby. Maybe these basic functions will become intiuitive to me soon.

Out of curiousity, why do you want to lose the layer mask?

As far as why I want to loose the mask…several reasons…
– I was trying to refine the edges of the masked image and could not figure out how with the mask in place so I wanted to try and loose it and experiement. I want to refine the edges of the image because the hair of the subject I extracted has some background residue that I can’t get rid of.
– when using the masked image in multiple / other documents, it seems like it would be cleaner to work with just the image and transparent background than to have to deal with 2 layers (the base image + the adjustment layer with the mask).
– I can get it down to 1 layer by merging the 2, but for some reason the mask sitting there just bugs me….not sure why 🙂

Thanks again for your help! Your job sounds fun by the way.

[Boyd Hawkins]

Thanks to both of you for the helpful advice. When I have 2 documents open, how do I get a 2nd layers palette visable so I can drag a layer from one palette to the other? Sorry for the stupid questions…for some reason PS is not as intuitive to me as I had hoped.

Another question. Once I have used a mask to crop out the background, is there a way to eliminate the mask and still have a transparent background, as if I extracted the image? I flattened the mask with the image, but if I flatten the result I get a white background.

Thanks, Boyd

[Boyd Hawkins]

Since both images were taken with the same camera, I assume that I somehow saved one of the files with a different setting somewhere along the way.

What is the proper procedure to add different images in as layers in a .psd document? Is it to create a layer and copy and paste the new images, or is there a better way?

Thanks, Boyd

[Boyd Hawkins]

Thanks Darby and Zowie for all the advice! I can tell this will work, but it will just take a lot of trial and error. I think that my first mistake was taking the picture on a light blue background instead of a white one.

Does using a green screen work in Photoshop like it does in video production? If so, I could not find the filter for it….please advise.

Thanks again!

Boyd

[Boyd Hawkins]

Thanks! I got very close to what I wanted. There is a little of the background residue in the hair. Any suggestion on how to get rid of that? Thanks for clearing it up for me.

For anyone interested, here is a a site that also helped out a bit.

https://www.planetphotoshop.com/select-hair-by-using-channels.html

[Boyd Hawkins]

How do you turn the black sectio of the alpha image to be transparent. Or how can I make black transparent in any image?

Maybe a similar question….how do the green screens work in Photoshop?

[Boyd Hawkins]

“Once you’ve got that Alpha looking good you can use the ‘Load Channel as Selection’ button or ctrl/cmd click the channel thumbnail. Then using this selection go back to your original layer and use Layer > Layer Mask > Reveal Selection.”

I am trying to extract a person from a solid background and the hair is either not getting extracted, or some of the background is left between the strands of hair. I think the procedure you described here will will work for me, but I am new to PS and not sure what to do. I have created the duplicate channel, but I am not sure what to do now. What do you mean by getting the Alpha looking good? What do I need to do to it?

If there is another solution for what I am trying to do, please let me know. Thank, Boyd.