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05/12/2007 07:14:34 AM · #1 |
EDITED TO REFLECT CORRECT MEMBERS
 OmanOtter, rheverly, alexjack, Nuzzer,  shelw128, acrotide, Buckeye_Fan, noraneko, drewbixcube, Greetmir, hipychik
WORKING WITH SELECTION TOOLS & MASKS
Mentor for this Group & Topic: Art Roflmao
Topic Author: Art Roflmao
Introduction and Disclaimers
This, and all other lessons put together by me are mostly right out of my head based on my experience. I learn new things about PS everyday, so I encourage everyone to participate in the discussion on the use of tools and methods. You should also feel free to post links to additional resources related to the current topic. Always remember that there is really no "right" way to do anything in Photoshop - find what works best for your style and comfort level.
SELECTION TOOLS
The various selection tools in PS allow you to isolate parts of an image to apply effects or filters to just that area or to copy or cut out an area. There are actually a lot of ways to "select" parts of an image: use a selection tool, CTRL+A (select all), Select Color Range and also variations of some of these.
The primary selection tools I use are the Marquees and the Lasso tools:
 - Selects a rectangular area. You can hold SHIFT to constrain the selection to a square. Option settings include a fixed size and fixed aspect ratio - both can be useful for cropping or copying consistent shape and size images.
 - Selects a round or elliptical area. You can hold SHIFT to constrain the selection to a circle. Option settings include a fixed size and fixed aspect ratio. This one also has the Anti-Alias setting which softens jagged edges.
 - These select a single pixel horizontal or vertical row or column from edge to edge. I have used this for very unique purposes before, but don't find them all that useful.
 - Good for rough freehand selection. Hard to control precision even with a tablet and once you let go of the mouse button, the selection is closed/completed for you.
 - Good for detailed work and straight edge selections - zoom way in and click from point to point, tracing edges of the part of the image you want to select. Use the spacebar and drag the image to reposition as you go.
 - Good for detailed work, but only works well on high contrast edges, but provides a quick way to remove a subject from it's background. Takes some practice to get the tolerance and smoothness settings dialed in to work for a particular image.
 - Good for selecting / removing large areas of solid or similar colors. Options allow for contiguous selection or selection of all colors within the tolerance setting. Can be used to work on the contents of a single layer or All Layers. The All Layers option will apply to creating the selection but keep in mind that when you apply filters and effects, they will only be applied to the contents of the selection on the active layer.
 - You can ADD to a selection by holding down the SHIFT key and you can SUBTRACT from a selection by holding down the ALT key when using the selection tools. If you accidentally click without pressing a key to add or subtract and lose your selection, just UNDO to get it back. Also remember that the lasso tools have additional options that can be set on the options bar. These include "feather", which will softent the edges of the selection. I rarely use the feather options on a selection tool since I can feather the selection when I am done building it.
 For any selection tool that requires fairly high contrasting edges, you can use CTRL+J to duplicate the current layer (assuming everything you want to select from is on this layer), then adjust the contrast, levels, curves for maximum contrast on the edges you want to select. Build your selection on this layer, then switch to the original layer, hide or delete the high contrast duplicate and perform whatever action on your selection now on the original image layer. This works especially well with the magnetic lasso.
 Using only the lasso selection tools, remove the subject from its background and place it on a solid white background. Post your completed image thumbs here for discussion and feedback. You can either use this image below, or use one of your own, but try something challenging - not something like an already silhouetted subject. If you use your own, also post the original thumb.
That's all I have time for right now. I will post the subtopic: "Masks" in this same thread in a day or two. Some of this is very basic, but it is a 101 class, so bear with us or check back as the topics are posted if these are too fundamental for you or chime in with your tips & tricks.
Message edited by author 2007-05-12 15:23:02. |
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05/12/2007 12:48:09 PM · #2 |
Hi all..
Ok here's my homework. Please, any help would be great!
wait...this says group B but I just noticed my name isn't up there anymore...what's going on?
Message edited by author 2007-05-12 12:49:58.
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05/12/2007 03:30:51 PM · #3 |
Originally posted by Buckeye_Fan:
wait...this says group B but I just noticed my name isn't up there anymore...what's going on? |
Sorry. Corrected. :) |
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05/12/2007 03:34:21 PM · #4 |
Originally posted by Buckeye_Fan:
Ok here's my homework. Please, any help would be great!
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Looking good. I would call this a rough cut. You could zoom way and and clean up the edges, but you got the idea.
The point of this exercise was really to get you to try the 3 different lasso tools and play with different zooms and settings and see what works best for you and when we get into some of the other extraction type methods, you will see some advantages and disadvantages of some tools over others, relative to the elements in the image - particularly things like hair and other soft edges. |
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05/12/2007 03:47:45 PM · #5 |
Oh, can I join this? Or is there an innitiation or something?
Message edited by author 2007-05-12 15:47:54. |
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05/12/2007 03:51:51 PM · #6 |
Originally posted by Trumpeteer4:
Oh, can I join this? Or is there an innitiation or something? |
It was started a week or so ago and active participant membership is closed, but you can feel free to lurk. Number of people was so big we already had to split it into 4 groups, so we are trying to keep things manageable. |
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05/12/2007 03:52:46 PM · #7 |
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05/12/2007 04:05:04 PM · #8 |
Art, I just got CS2 a couple days ago, so I really don't know what I'm doing. I have a question...I traced the squirrel with the lasso tool, now I don't what to do next. I know how to save my selection as a layer in PSP, but I can't seem to figure it out in here.
I'm not gonna have to stand in the corner or stay after school am I? |
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05/12/2007 04:58:15 PM · #9 |
Originally posted by hipychik:
Art, I just got CS2 a couple days ago, so I really don't know what I'm doing. I have a question...I traced the squirrel with the lasso tool, now I don't what to do next. I know how to save my selection as a layer in PSP, but I can't seem to figure it out in here.
I'm not gonna have to stand in the corner or stay after school am I? |
Good question! I forgot to mention "inverting the selection" - if you selected the squirrel and you want to remove the background, there are a couple ways to do it - a quick way is to use CTRL+J - this will create a new layer with your selection (the squirrel) positioned exactly where it is on the original layer. Then you can hide or delete the original layer and put a white background layer underneath the new squirrel layer.
The other thing you can do is invert the selection (CTRL+SHIFT+I) and press the delete key. This will select everything BUT the squirrel and delete it. If your layer is set as a background layer (locked), the deleted area will be replaced with whatever your background color is set to on the tool palette. If it is on an unlocked layer ("Layer 1" etc), the deleted area should become transparent.
Does this help? |
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05/12/2007 05:25:27 PM · #10 |
I think I got it. I was playing around while I was waiting. I made the selection then copied it, opened a new BG and pasted. I don't know if this is the right way but...
First attempt with the magnetic lasso tool. LOL
This was with the polygonal lasso tool.
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05/13/2007 02:26:50 AM · #11 |
Originally posted by hipychik:
I think I got it. I was playing around while I was waiting. I made the selection then copied it, opened a new BG and pasted. I don't know if this is the right way but... |
I do believe I said there is no "right" way. :)
Originally posted by hipychik:
First attempt with the magnetic lasso tool. LOL
This was with the polygonal lasso tool. |
You did great on that second one. The first one... well, I got a phone call from PETA about that. :P |
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05/13/2007 03:08:51 AM · #12 |
And now for the second part of this topic...
MASKS
For this part of the topic, I am going to cheat a little and copy/paste some info directly from the PS help file.
Originally posted by Adobe Photoshop CS Help File - About Masks:
Masks let you isolate and protect areas of an image as you apply color changes, filters, or other effects to the rest of the image. When you select part of an image, the area that is not selected is "masked" or protected from editing. You can also use masks for complex image editing such as gradually applying color or filter effects to an image.
Masks and channels are grayscale images, so you can edit them like any other image. With masks and channels, areas painted black are protected, and areas painted white are editable. Masks let you save and reuse time-consuming selections as alpha channels. Alpha channels can store selections so you can use them again, or you can load a saved selection into another image.
Photoshop lets you create masks in the following ways:
Quick Mask mode
Lets you edit any selection as a mask. The advantage of editing your selection as a mask is that you can use almost any Photoshop tool or filter to modify the mask. For example, if you create a rectangular selection with the Marquee tool, you can enter Quick Mask mode and use the paintbrush to extend or contract the selection, or you can use a filter to distort the edges of the selection. You can also use selection tools, because the quick mask is not a selection. (See Using Quick Mask mode to make selections (Photoshop).) You can also save and load selections you make using Quick Mask mode in Alpha channels.
Alpha channels
Lets you save and load selections. You can edit Alpha channels using any of the editing tools. When a channel is selected in the Channels palette, foreground and background colors appear as grayscale values.
Layer masks and vector masks let you produce a mix of soft and hard masking edges on the same layer. By making changes to the layer mask or the vector masks, you can apply a variety of special effects. |
The only thing I am going to add is my endorsement of Quickmask mode - I only recently started using it and it is great for doing detailed selection work.
The only assignment on this part of the topic is to experiment with it.
Remember "Q" takes you into quickmask mode and also toggles you back out. When in Quickmask mode, the masked part of the image (UNselected part) is the colored part - you paint the mask in with a pencil or brush. If your brush opacity is less than 100% when masking, whatever you do to the resulting selection will be applied accordingly.
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**Don't worry if you are one of the group members and are just catching up with the thread - feel free to apply the use of quickmask mode to the original assignment and see if it makes things easier than the lasso tool. I won't be posting the next topic for a few days, so go ahead and experiment, post experiences, discuss, tawk amongst yuhselves. :) |
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05/13/2007 03:42:40 PM · #13 |
One method for fixing up hair is to use a special brush for either erasing, or for quickmasking in the first place. I use the "Dune Grass" brush (for MANY things) and it can be adjusted in a zillion ways. Brushes can be used for burning, dodging, history brush, eraser, clone stamp and other things, so the many settings available for the brush in this palette make it very useful!
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05/14/2007 03:20:17 AM · #14 |
Good stuff Ken. I may not get my homework in for another week or so as I'm out of town with work but I'm here.
The first thing I've got to learn more are the keyboard shortcuts. I don't know how many times I've sat there trying to remember how to get into quickmask mode when all I needed was to hit "Q" ;)
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05/14/2007 06:31:35 PM · #15 |
My first homework assignment!
I used the magnetic lasso tool. Thanks for the tip for adding and subtracting (I didn't know that)
Shel |
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05/14/2007 07:53:35 PM · #16 |
Originally posted by shelw128:
I used the magnetic lasso tool. Thanks for the tip for adding and subtracting (I didn't know that)
Shel |
Good job, Shel! As I mentioned before, the magnetic lasso can be useful for a quick rough cutout. Now try quickmask mode and zoom in.: :) |
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05/15/2007 01:21:55 AM · #17 |
Layer masks: making masks permanent
Now that you're using the quick mask to create whatever shape masks you like, wouldn't it be nice to keep those selections? That's what layer masks do. Instead of marking out some selection and then actually deleting the rest, you tell Photoshop to only show what you want. But the rest of it stays there, so you can edit it the mask later if you want, adding and deleting as much as you like.
Art has asked me to take everyone through creating layer masks. I'm going to go through several steps as explanation, and then give you an assignment.
The first way we'll do this is using quick mask. So starting with the squirrel, I'm going to duplicate the original layer and then turn it off. It's always best to work on a duplicate.
Then using quick mask, I'll roughly mask it out (remember that I like to paint what I'm selecting, as opposed to what I'm masking - you can do it either way, but if you paint out the masked area, remember to invert the selection).
Next, I'll exit quick mask so you can see the selection:
I then create the layer mask using the layer menu. The exact location probably varies with the PS version, but here's how it looks in CS2:
Note that I can choose to reveal or hide the selection, so be sure you do what you intend. You'll see that whatever I didn't select disappears. But it's not really deleted - it's all still there, available to be added back in if you like.
Look at the layers tab. You'll see that next to the active image layer thumbnail is a new black and white box. That's the layer mask thumbnail:
In the layer mask thumbnail, the white shows the area that's visible and the black shows what's masked out:
So far, this is just like quick mask. The big difference is that the layer mask is completely editable. To edit the actual image, click on the thumbnail of that layer. But to edit the mask, click on the B&W mask box. For example, if I want to add a bit of the rocks in the upper left, I click on the mask and just paint in some white:
To remove some of the mask instead, I'd paint in black.
Three of the most powerful things to me about layer masks are that you can:
1) edit them
2) see them full size, and
3) temporarily turn them off:
It's often good to see the mask full-size, esp. to make sure you really painted it in as solidly as you like. To do that, alt-click on the mask thumbnail in the layers tab:
Alt-click again or just click on the normal image thumbnail to exit full-size mask view.
You can see that I didn't quite paint in solid white across the whole squirrel.
You also sometimes want to temporarily turn off the layer mask (for example, to make sure you didn't mask out something you really wanted to include). To toggle the layer mask on and off, use shift-click on the mask thumbnail. Note that while you're seeing the whole layer, the mask is still there, and can be turned back on again by shift-clicking on the mask thumbnail.
Now that you've seen how to create, edit, and toggle on and off layer masks, it's time for you to try it!
Layer mask assignment part 1: Using the original squirrel image, create a duplicate layer. Turn off the original layer so all you see is the copy. Now create a layer mask following the steps above.
Layer mask assignment part 2: Click on the layer mask thumbnail and edit it. Use the brushes, marquee and other tools, and other methods just like you did to tweak a quick mask. Try black, white, and grays to introduce various levels of transparency.
You can even apply gradients to the mask, which will apply smoothly varying transparency.
Layer mask assignment part 3: Now that you've created a layer mask beginning from a selection, try creating a blank layer mask using the layer menu - you can either reveal the entire layer or hide it, and then start painting in the mask as you see fit.
Extra credit: create a layer mask for an adjustment layer like levels. Adjustment layers automatically create layer masks (ever wonder what that white box was over to the right in the layers tab?) You can also create a selection first, and then when you then create the adjustment layer, the selection will be applied automatically as a layer mask.
Message edited by author 2007-05-15 01:45:39.
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05/17/2007 11:31:31 PM · #18 |
Is anyone still out there?
I've found that for DPC advanced editing challenges, the main use for layer masks is for controlling various adjustment layers like curves, levels, and color changes (layer masks are selections, so are illegal for minimal and basic editing, and there are many more uses in expert editing).
But you can also have a lot of fun with "multiple personality shots" like my recent triptych entry. Take a look and then come back to learn how to do it:
At its simplest, this took three steps:
1) Shoot. Use a tripod and manual settings. You want the lighting to be the same for each shot.
2) Combine shots into one Photoshop file. First open one file as the "base" layer to provide the background for the others. Then open each additional shot and copy it as a layer into the base file.
One way to do that is to click and drag the new layer from the layers tab over to the base file and let go; it will then appear as a layer in the base file. You might need to move the layer once it's moved to get it aligned right.
 
3) Create layer masks . Just mask out the portion of each additional shot that you want to show. That way, minor changes in the background or lighting won't matter.
For my triptych, I used the leftmost shot as the base. Although there were a couple of girls chasing a ball in the background, I just masked them out of the other two shots.
Here's a composite showing the original three shots, the layer masks for the middle and right shots, and the final composite without the white lines:
You can get as complex as you want; changing clothes and hair really sells the effect well. The longer you take shooting outside, though, the more chance the light will change. And after you do the basics, watch for things like overlapping shadows, reflections, etc.
Set up a tripod (or just put your camera on a table), shoot a few pics, and make your own multi-personality shot.
Here are a few other examples to inspire you:
   
Bonus assignment: after doing it, try doing a triptych where part of one frame overlaps the other, like in the cartwheel shot above. You now have the layer masking tools to do it in any of various ways.
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05/18/2007 09:20:18 AM · #19 |
Originally posted by levyj413:
Is anyone still out there? |
I'm still here, just a little busy...I will have to turn in homework Monday or Tuesday of next week...I understand if you have to dock the standard 10%. ;p |
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05/19/2007 06:56:05 AM · #20 |
So sorry! Busy with work this week. I'll catch up this weekend.
Shel |
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05/19/2007 08:19:25 AM · #21 |
| I'm still here...I'm just not understanding quick masks. I'm still messing with that! |
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05/20/2007 03:58:32 PM · #22 |
For those using Photoshop Elements, which seems not to have the same quick mask or layer mask feature,here's a Google search on layer masks and Photoshop Elements - looks like you can fake it up.
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05/20/2007 04:02:53 PM · #23 |
Originally posted by levyj413:
Set up a tripod (or just put your camera on a table), shoot a few pics, and make your own multi-personality shot. |
I've recently done one of these in the Free Study:
I used layer masks a lot in this and it wasn't as easy as it looks ;) |
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05/20/2007 07:40:24 PM · #24 |
Finally tried the quick mask mode.
My quick results: 
With more practice and fine-tuning, I'll improve. Definitely like using the quick mask!
Shel |
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05/30/2007 04:09:27 PM · #25 |
Hi folks. Ken (Art Roflmao) wrote me to say that he was going to be away from DPC for awhile. He wasn't specific as to why.
He asked me to let everyone know. It's my fault for the delay - I've been caught up in other stuff myself.
Now we're going to edit layer masks on adjustment layers.
Take a shot and add some adjustment layers, then create layer masks and edit them as follows. A good one to play with is the simple brightness/contrast adjustment layer because it's easy to see the effects if you make the adjustment extreme.
1) Using quick mask, select some feature in the photo, like a face, a building, etc. Choose something with a hard edge to make the effects more obvious. If you've set your quick mask to show what's masked out, then when you exit quick mask, remember to invert your selection so the feature is selected instead of omitted using select->invert selection.
2) Create a new brightness/contrast layer. Set both sliders far to the right. You should see the effects only within the selected area. Hit "okay" or whatever the button is to finish the layer and create the layer mask for the adjustment layer. It will also cancel the selection.
3) Edit the adjustment layer's mask in two ways:
a) Click the layer mask thumbnail in the layers tab so it has a black outline around it. You should still be looking at the image in the window, not just the layer mask. Then, with a brush and either black or white, change the boundary between black and white (enlarge one or the other). You'll see the effects as you move the brush across the image.
b) Press alt and click on the adjustment layer's mask thumbnail so the screen shows the mask. Change the edges of the mask. Click on the image thumbail or again alt-click on the layer mask thumbnail to return to normal view.
4) Repeat step 3, but this time use a selection tool like the lasso instead of the brush. Since you'll be selecting areas instead of actually painting black or white, you'll need to use the edit->fill command or the paint bucket to fill the selection with black or white. This is a useful trick when you want to fill in large areas.
Remember: white is where you'll see the adjustment layer's effects,and black is where you won't. Also remember that all the changes in this assignment should be only to the adjustment layer's mask, not the image itself. If you see black or white appearing in the image, press ctrl-Z to undo.
5) Using any tool, create some gray areas in the adjustment layer's mask. The darker the gray, the less effect shows through.
6) While viewing the adjustment layer's mask (remember: alt-click on the layer mask thumbnail), select some part of the white/black boundary and blur it under filters->blur->gaussian blur. If you need an effect to fade out, this is one way to do it.
Once you're really comfortable with all of this, you'll be much better prepared to use layer masks in advanced editing challenges, where you can make selections. You'll often want to limit the effects of adjustment layers. For example, to change the lighting, which will be the subject of the next thread. Here's one example of how much you can change lighting, to get you interested.
Original:
Layer mask showing the sky and cars, changing the light; note how the trees in the middle remain the same:
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- Selects a rectangular area. You can hold SHIFT to constrain the selection to a square. Option settings include a fixed size and fixed aspect ratio - both can be useful for cropping or copying consistent shape and size images.
- Selects a round or elliptical area. You can hold SHIFT to constrain the selection to a circle. Option settings include a fixed size and fixed aspect ratio. This one also has the Anti-Alias setting which softens jagged edges.
- These select a single pixel horizontal or vertical row or column from edge to edge. I have used this for very unique purposes before, but don't find them all that useful.
- Good for rough freehand selection. Hard to control precision even with a tablet and once you let go of the mouse button, the selection is closed/completed for you.
- Good for detailed work and straight edge selections - zoom way in and click from point to point, tracing edges of the part of the image you want to select. Use the spacebar and drag the image to reposition as you go.
- Good for detailed work, but only works well on high contrast edges, but provides a quick way to remove a subject from it's background. Takes some practice to get the tolerance and smoothness settings dialed in to work for a particular image.
- Good for selecting / removing large areas of solid or similar colors. Options allow for contiguous selection or selection of all colors within the tolerance setting. Can be used to work on the contents of a single layer or All Layers. The All Layers option will apply to creating the selection but keep in mind that when you apply filters and effects, they will only be applied to the contents of the selection on the active layer.
- You can ADD to a selection by holding down the SHIFT key and you can SUBTRACT from a selection by holding down the ALT key when using the selection tools. If you accidentally click without pressing a key to add or subtract and lose your selection, just UNDO to get it back. Also remember that the lasso tools have additional options that can be set on the options bar. These include "feather", which will softent the edges of the selection. I rarely use the feather options on a selection tool since I can feather the selection when I am done building it.
For any selection tool that requires fairly high contrasting edges, you can use CTRL+J to duplicate the current layer (assuming everything you want to select from is on this layer), then adjust the contrast, levels, curves for maximum contrast on the edges you want to select. Build your selection on this layer, then switch to the original layer, hide or delete the high contrast duplicate and perform whatever action on your selection now on the original image layer. This works especially well with the magnetic lasso.
Using only the lasso selection tools, remove the subject from its background and place it on a solid white background. Post your completed image thumbs here for discussion and feedback. You can either use this image below, or use one of your own, but try something challenging - not something like an already silhouetted subject. If you use your own, also post the original thumb.
