Portrait Photography

"Scott & Prissy" wrote in message

my son recently had his pictures take for his Karate class, and I was wondering, how does one take an original picture taken against a dark background, and transpose it to a different background such as the ones listed at this link: (please note that these are just examples from the website of the photograhers that took the karate pics of my son…)
http://www.rmapco.com/Backgrounds.asp

I am interested in digital photography, and have a Photoshop on my

computer.

Please help me with this issue!

You can try (and waist your time ) with the extract filter You can do a better job with the KnockOut plugin (hard to learn) Or you can do what the pros do: Use something like Primatte http://www.digitalanarchy.com/product_primatte.html

Stephan

1) First set the picture you want as the final background as layer 1.
2) Open & copy the picture of your son or other subject into a second layer (layer 2)
3) Scale the pic of your son to fit the background. Turn the layer on/off to check.
4) With the top layer selected create a Layer Mask. You should get a white box in the layers pallete next to layer 2. Click on this to select it. (the picture in the main screen should not change) Use the paint bucket tool to fill with black. This will hide the top image leaving you with the background (layer 1).
5) Make sure you have the mask selected and using the paintbrush colour white over where your son is standing. This will reveal the top image. Dont worry if you colour too much, you can switch to black and cover up the excess. Zoom in to correct any edges.
6) Select each layer and adjust hue/saturation/brightness etc or filter for a more realistic colour balence. Crop if necessary.

Note: Layer Masks. The Black part of the mask prevents that part of that layer being shown, thus revealing the layer(s) below. The white part of the mask allows that part of that layer to be shown. The benefit of this as opposed to cutting/cropping is that using masks retains all the original image detail untill you flatten/merge the layers. So if you find you missed a body part or gained extra background when cutting, all you would have to do is go to the mask and colour black/white over the area to be adjusted untill ou are satisfied with the result.

Hope this helps.

Scott & Prissy wrote:

my son recently had his pictures take for his Karate class, and I was wondering, how does one take an original picture taken against a dark background, and transpose it to a different background such as the ones listed at this link: (please note that these are just examples from the website of the photograhers that took the karate pics of my son…)
http://www.rmapco.com/Backgrounds.asp

I am interested in digital photography, and have a Photoshop on my computer. Please help me with this issue!

do a search for green/blue screening. it’s done the same way the weatherman gets on the map on TV.

You just taught me something new! Thanks Andy, mucho appreciated. 🙂 And thanks to Stephan for the links as well.

"Andy" <shif> wrote in message

1) First set the picture you want as the final background as layer 1.
2) Open & copy the picture of your son or other subject into a second

layer

(layer 2)
3) Scale the pic of your son to fit the background. Turn the layer on/off

to

check.
4) With the top layer selected create a Layer Mask. You should get a white box in the layers pallete next to layer 2. Click on this to select it.

(the

picture in the main screen should not change) Use the paint bucket tool to fill with black. This will hide the top image leaving you with the background (layer 1).
5) Make sure you have the mask selected and using the paintbrush colour white over where your son is standing. This will reveal the top image.

Dont

worry if you colour too much, you can switch to black and cover up the excess. Zoom in to correct any edges.
6) Select each layer and adjust hue/saturation/brightness etc or filter

for

a more realistic colour balence. Crop if necessary.

Note: Layer Masks. The Black part of the mask prevents that part of that layer being shown, thus revealing the layer(s) below. The white part of

the

mask allows that part of that layer to be shown. The benefit of this as opposed to cutting/cropping is that using masks retains all the original image detail untill you flatten/merge the layers. So if you find you

missed

a body part or gained extra background when cutting, all you would have to do is go to the mask and colour black/white over the area to be adjusted untill ou are satisfied with the result.

Hope this helps.

I do this quite a lot, and have found the best way it to as the previous person has said create two layers your person and the background, using the magic want select the background on the top layer this is the bit you want to remove, don’t worry if it’s not too accurate, holding dowm the shift key to add to the selection, don’t worry if there are little bits missing, then go to select-modify-expand I usually use something like 5 pixels an a 2000×3000 image then go select-modify-contract with the same setting as the expand say 5 pixels, this will remove the pin holes in the mask, then go to quick mask and tidy up the mask using the brush tool, I find the easiest way is to draw round the object with either the black of white brush, Black adds to the mask White removes the mask, I found a usefull tip is to hold down the shift key while clicking round the object, this will join the dots giving a smooth edge, when you have masked the background blur the quick mask around 1 to 2 pixels, change back to the normal mask view and Ctrl X it it’s not right you can fill in small detail with the history brush or erase tool and blur the edge with the blur brush.

"James Connell" wrote in message

Scott & Prissy wrote:

my son recently had his pictures take for his Karate class, and I was wondering, how does one take an original picture taken against a dark background, and transpose it to a different background such as the ones listed at this link: (please note that these are just examples from the website of the photograhers that took the karate pics of my son…)
http://www.rmapco.com/Backgrounds.asp

I am interested in digital photography, and have a Photoshop on my

computer.

Please help me with this issue!

do a search for green/blue screening. it’s done the same way the weatherman gets on the map on TV.