VectorKing's Awesome Graphics Blog

Welcome to my first tutorial in my first blog !
Today I'm going to be covering how to extract a model with loose hair from a photo using edge refinement techniques.

Result:



Requirements for this tutorial:

• A photo of a model to extract
• A photo to use as a background
• Adobe Photoshop CS5 (no earlier versions will work for this)
• Basic Photoshop knowledge
• Patience

First thing you want to do is paste the photo of the model into Photoshop. I'm going to be using this photo as an example for this tutorial.

Now, choose the quick selection tool by pressing W on your keyboard:

The next thing you want to do is use the quick selection tool to select a fairly rough draft of the model without all the hair detail but with the main shape. My selection looks like this:



Doing good so far! Now, with the selection active press Alt+Ctrl+R to bring up the refine edge windows - this is going to help us get every little detail in the models hair selected properly.

I recommend changing the viewing mode to "on black" for easier editing



Now comes the important part. Under edge detection select the check box that says "Smart radius" and bring the slider up to an amount where you see all the details in the models hair, Ignore the artifacts for now. I chose 35px



Now use the refine edge tool (E) to lightly brush over the edges of the hair highlighting and revealing detail slowly (the slower and more precise you are the better the result). If the hair looks to blurry and not refined add some contrast or shift the edge as needed using the sliders. at the end add some color decontamination and set it at a setting that looks good to you. These are my settings:



Before I press OK I like to press K to see the mask and make sure I got all the detail.
Now press OK and presto - the image is cut with immense detail! you can now use your rendered image in a composite with a background for example I used this background of a sunset and put it underneath the girl to get this:



Using color correction and composting you can achieve truly real life looking results, but that is for another tutorial altogether.



Thanks for reading my tutorial I hope you enjoyed it and learned a lot!
Please comment and rate my blog if you like my posts. Thanks!