Photoshop help (white background)

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Soldato
Joined
10 May 2004
Posts
5,202
Location
Middlesex
Hey guys,

I've been given a picture in which they want the background to be made white.

Now the focus is pretty bad but they don't really care because it's for a small web image.

The problem is I'm terrible at photoshop. I've used a couple of youtube techniques in the past which have turned out okay (it has been on males with little hair though) but I'm having a problem with the hair in this picture.

I've tried 2 techiques, using quick selection tool, and using the colour dropper to (in theory) change the colour of the background automatically.

The problem I have is that it works fine for everything outside of the portrait but the gaps in the hair are still grey. Nothing I do looks natural.

So, can you guys help out?

It's a bit cheeky but it would be great if someone could do it for me but also if you could explain the best method for doing it.

The pictures:

Original:

http://i.imgur.com/QukG7YN.jpg

My terrible attempt:

http://i.imgur.com/eGugKq0.jpg

Thanks a lot.
 
Enjoy

http://i.imgur.com/w1kYv4S.jpg

For your information this one was an easy edit. Simply go to select>colour range and click on the background. You will see the girl turn black and the background white (you have now selected the background). Click OK and press ctrl+J. Now it's simply a case of making a levels adjustment to change the tonality of the background layer to pure white (hold alt and click between the background layer and the levels layer to ensure that the levels layer will only adjust the background).

To make it even better, during the colour range selection try shift clicking on the grey areas in between hairs to select those areas too. This may take some time to perfect the mask however.
 
Last edited:
Hair is always a bit of a pickle to do really well. Everyone's got their own technique but ultimately you end up doing it in pieces and layering it up from different parts.

I go to: Image: Calculations. From there I tend to take the green channel and merge it with the red, then i'll use add or subtract to see which works best as a base mask.

From there I use burn and dodge to bring out the hair detail and use a combination of brush in overlay mode to finish off.

Below was done in ten minutes with that technique. Not perfect (the right is missing some detail) but it's something you could spend an hour on to do properly.

2q3mxz9.jpg


Hope that helps? ;)
 
Thanks guys.

Arcane said:
Hair is always a bit of a pickle to do really well. Everyone's got their own technique but ultimately you end up doing it in pieces and layering it up from different parts.

I go to: Image: Calculations. From there I tend to take the green channel and merge it with the red, then i'll use add or subtract to see which works best as a base mask.

From there I use burn and dodge to bring out the hair detail and use a combination of brush in overlay mode to finish off.

Below was done in ten minutes with that technique. Not perfect (the right is missing some detail) but it's something you could spend an hour on to do properly.



Hope that helps? ;)
Click to expand...

This looks pretty spot on to me!

Photoshop is just such a massive app for a newbie, I struggle to figure out where to even start!

Thanks a lot.
 
They've given me a few more to do now, that's what I get for cheating!

Arcane, if you have some time do you think you could give slightly more detailed instructions on how you did it please?


nolimit said:
Super easy/lazy way to fix this is to play around with Replace Colour technique found under Image > Adjustment > Replace Colour

10 sec.
Click to expand...

I've tried this method and it doesn't seem to work very well for me. It ends up white but the background looks dirty and because the shade of grey in between the strands of hair is slightly different it ends up looking a bit weird.
 
wv4xau.jpg


Go to Image: Calculations, then use these settings as a starting point. From there, use dodge and Burn at an opacity of 20-30% on Midtones and gently go around the hair until you're happy. I personally make copies of the channel in case I go too far and end up over cooking it.

Remember, it can take time to do it properly (i.e. 300dpi for print) so don't be afraid to spend some time on it. Use the channel as your layer mask.
 
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