How to Cut Hairs in Photoshop using Extract

One of the most challenging montage or masking jobs in the profession of post-production editing is the hair lift. When the model has long flowing hair and the subject needs to change location many post-production artists call in sick. Get it wrong and, just like a bad wig, it shows. Extract filters, Magic Erasers and Tragic Extractors don’t even get us close.


Portrait image by Dan Stainsby

The first secret step must be completed before you even press the shutter on the camera. Your number one essential step for success is to first shoot your model against a white backdrop, sufficiently illuminated so that it is captured as white rather than gray. This important aspect of the initial image capture ensures that the resulting hair transplant is seamless and undetectable.

The post-production is the easy bit - simply apply the correct sequence of editing steps and the magic is all yours. This is not brain surgery but follow these simple steps and you will join the elite ranks of Photoshop gurus around the world. Celebrity status is just a few clicks away.



Step 1
The initial steps of this tutorial are concerned with creating a mask that can be used in the final montage. Start by dragging the background layer to the New Layer icon to duplicate it. Choose ‘Remove Color’ from the Adjust Color submenu found in the Enhance menu (Enhance > Adjust Color > Remove Color).

Drag this desaturated/monochrome layer to the New Layer icon in the Layers palette to duplicate it. Set the blend mode of this new layer (now on top of the layers stack) to ‘Overlay’ mode.



Step 2
From the Layer menu choose ‘Merge Down’ to create a single high-contrast monochrome layer. Select ‘Black’ as the foreground color and the ‘Brush tool’ from the Tools palette. Choose a large hard edged brush and 100% opacity from the Options bar and set the mode to ‘Overlay’ (also in the Options bar).

Painting in Overlay mode will preserve the white background and darken the rest of the pixels. Accuracy whilst painting in Overlay mode is not a concern when the background is white or is significantly lighter than the subject. Avoid going anywhere near the tips of the hair at this stage.



Step 3
Even the bright tones of the white shirt can be rendered black by repeatedly clicking the mouse whilst using a large brush in Overlay mode. Again it is important to avoid going anywhere near the hair.



Step 4
Darken the body of the hair near the scalp but avoid the locks of hair that have white background showing through. Painting these individual strands of hair will thicken the hair and may lead to subsequent halos appearing later in the montage process.



Performance Tip
Switch the blend mode of the brush in the Options bar to ‘Normal’ mode when painting away from the edge of the subject. This will ensure a speedy conclusion to the mask making process. The mask is now ready to use in the montage.

Note > If any of the background has been darkened in the process of creating a black and white mask switch the foreground color to ‘White’ and choose ‘Overlay’ in the Options bar. Paint to render any areas of gray background white. It is again important to avoid painting near the edges containing delicate hair detail.



Step 5
With the Remove Color layer selected add a Levels adjustment layer. Without making any adjustment simply select OK. This Levels adjustment layer has a layer mask that we can use to house the mask that we have created in the previous step.



Step 6
The next step relocates the mask you have just created into the layer mask of the adjustment layer. From the Select menu choose ‘All’ and from the Edit menu choose ‘Copy Merged’. Hold down the Alt key and click on the layer mask thumbnail in the Layers palette. The image window will momentarily appear white as you view the empty contents of the layer mask.

From the Edit menu choose ‘Paste’ to transfer the contents of the clipboard to this layer mask. Click on the layer below to select it and then click on the Visibility icon of this layer to switch it off. This mask layer serves no purpose now that it has been successfully transferred to the adjustment layer mask.



Step 7
The new background is placed on its own layer above the figure and mask layers. Drag the thumbnail of this new file into the image window of your project file from either the Photo Bin or the layer thumbnail in the Layers palette. Group this new background layer with the adjustment layer beneath (Layer > Group with Previous). Alternatively you can hold down the Alt key and click on the dividing line between the two layers to group them.



Step 8
Grouping the new background with the adjustment layer will mask the background in the region of the figure but the quality will not yet be acceptable. Setting the blend mode of the adjustment layer to ‘Multiply’ will bring back all of the fine detail in the hair. The background will be not darkened by applying the ‘Multiply’ blend mode as white is a neutral color. The subtle detail in the fine strands of hair will however be preserved in all their glory.



Step 9
The accuracy and quality of the edge of the mask will usually require some attention in order for the subject to achieve a seamless quality with the new background. Make a selection of all of the edges that do not include any hair detail using the Lasso tool with a small amount of feather set in the Options bar. With the adjustment layer mask selected choose the ‘Gaussian Blur filter’ (Filter > Blur > Gaussian Blur) and apply a 1- to 2-pixel Radius Blur to the mask.

Click OK and then from the Enhance menu choose a Levels adjustment from the Adjust lighting submenu. Move the central Gamma slider underneath the histogram to realign the edge of the mask with the subject edge (no dark or light halo should be visible).



Performance Tip
If the mask is too soft the edges can be sharpened by moving the black and white sliders in towards the central Gamma slider a little. Select OK when perfect alignment has been achieved.

Zoom in to 100% Actual pixels whilst working to accurately assess the quality of your mask.



Step 10
In most instances the hair is already looking pretty fabulous but to modify and perfect the hair even further you will need to inverse the selection (Select > Inverse). Choose ‘Levels’ once again and move the central Gamma slider to the left to increase the density of the hair and eliminate any white halos that may be present. Moving the White slider to the left a little may help the process of achieving a perfect blend between subject and background. Select OK and choose ‘Deselect’ from the Select menu.

Performance Tip
Any localized refinement of the mask can be achieved manually by painting with a small soft edged brush directly into the layer mask. Paint with white at a reduced opacity (10-20%) to remove any fine halos present in localized areas. Several brush strokes will slowly erase the halo from the image.



Step 11
The true test of an accurate mask for a subject that was photographed against a white background is when you place the subject against a very dark background. Grouping a Levels adjustment layer with the new background layer can darken the background image used in this project.

Hold down the Alt key when you select a Levels adjustment layer from the Layers palette. Click on the Group with Previous box in the New Layer dialog box and then select OK to open the Levels dialog box. Move the Gamma slider to the right in order to preview your subject against a darker background in the image window.

How to design Web 2.0 Buttons in Photoshop

Buttons Photoshop tutorials are probably one of the hottest categories in any Photoshop tutorials site and since Web 2.0 is such hot topics now, lets go about doing a simple button suitable for any Web 2.0 application of websites. Tutorial after jump.



Create a blank canvas at about 500px (width) x 400px (height) to start off the button design. Create a new layer call ‘bg01‘. Select the Rounded Rectangular Tool, hold SHIFT and draw a round sided square in the center. Any color is fine at the current stage.

Call up the Blending Options of ‘bg01‘ and adjust the following styles:
Drop Shadow

• Opacity: 40%
• Distance: 0px
• Spread: 0%
• Size: 6px

Gradiant Overlay

• Color stop: 0%, #d00031
• Color stop: 100%, #ff2b5d

Hold CTRL, left click on ‘bg01‘ Layer Thumbnail to select its shape. Go Select -> Modify -> Contract and enter the value ‘2px‘. This will shrink the selected area by 2 pixel.

Create a new layer call ‘bg02‘ and filled the highlighted (after shrink) area with any color. I use #000000 black here. Double click on ‘bg02′ to launch up the Blending Option and tweak the following style.
Gradiant Overlay

• Color stop: 0%, #c6002f
• Color stop: 100%, #c6002f

Create another new layer for text, call it ‘txt‘. Insert your button’s text. I’ll use an alphabet to represent. The font styles I’m using here are as follow:

• Rounded Arial Bold
• 150pt

Same, after deciding your text, double click on ‘txt’ to launch the Blending Options and tweak the following styles.
Drop Shadow

• Opacity: 25%
• Distance: 0px
• Spread: 0px
• Size: 5px

Inner Shadow

• Opacity: 10%
• Distance: 0px
• Choke: 0
• Size: 10px

Bevel Emboss

• Depth: 1px
• Direction: Down
• Size: 0px
• Softten: 0px
• Highlight Mode Opacity: 32%
• Shadow Mode Opacity: 32%

Gradiant Overlay

• Color Stop:0% #d2d2d2
• Color Stop:100% #f0efef

Button is almost done. Let’s give it a little glow over the top part. Hold CTRL, left click ‘bg02‘ Layer Thumbnail to highlight the outer shape; choose Eclipse Marquee Tool. Now hold ALT, with Eclipse Marquee Tool selected, drag is across to minus out bottom half of the highlighted area. Refer to image above.

With the top portion highlighted and Eclipse Marquee Tool still selected, right click and choose Feather; enter 15px for the radius.
Create a new layer, call it ‘glow‘ and fill the highlighted part with white [#ffffff]. This should add glow effect to the top part of your button. Final product should look something like the image below.

How to use Actions in Photoshop

Photoshop is a tool of the trade. If you are a photographer you spend time in Photoshop on a daily basis. One of the keys to faster post processing and template editing is knowing how to create an action. You know, those little timesavers with just a click of the mouse can save you so much time over the course of the day. If you are like me anything that can save you a few minutes is worth learning!

How to create an action in Photoshop



How to create an action in Photoshop from Angie Sandy on Vimeo.

1. Open the image you want to use to create an action.
2. Go to the action menu select the little arrow pointing down and select new action.
3. Name your action and if you would like to assign it a function key you can do that here. Hit the record button
4. Begin processing the image. In my example this is where I went to the layer menu and selected flatten.
5. Next I went to the image menu and choose the image size of 650 pixels wide.
6. Finally I went to the filters menu. I choose sharpen and selected unsharp mask. The amounts I used were 100% and radius .5
7. Move over to the action menu and hit stop the recording.
8. Now you have a complete action to flatten, resize and sharpen your image.

How to Sharpen the images using the high pass filter

Sharpening images using the high pass filter

Most people when they want to sharpen their images with photoshop they use the USM (Unsharp Mask filter), however there is another powerful photoshop filter that in my opinion does a better job.

I am going to start with a closeup of a flower that I took handheld
Here is a 100%crop of the picture before using this technique




Let’s start

1) Open the photo you want to sharpen and make sure you are viewing it at 100%
2) Duplicate the background layer by hitting Ctrl+J or just go to Layer-> Duplicate Layer
3) Now it’s time to apply the High Pass filter at the duplicate layer. Go to Filter-> Other -> High Pass. I usually use a radius somewhere between 9 and 12. In this case I used a radius of 11.5

Now your image should look like this.


Change the duplicate layer mode to either overlay,soft light or hard light. Play with the blending modes and the opacity (I usually use values from 30 to 70% ) of the duplicate layer until you are happy with the result
In this case I used Soft light and an opacity of 60%
Here is a side by side comparison of the original versus the modified


Original ————————————————>Modified

What is SEO ( Search Engine Optimization)?

Whenever you enter a query in a search engine and hit 'enter' you get a list of web results that contain that query term. Users normally tend to visit websites that are at the top of this list as they perceive those to be more relevant to the query. If you have ever wondered why some of these websites rank better than the others then you must know that it is because of a powerful web marketing technique called Search Engine Optimization (SEO).

SEO is a technique which helps search engines find and rank your site higher than the millions of other sites in response to a search query. SEO thus helps you get traffic from search engines.
This SEO tutorial covers all the necessary information you need to know about Search Engine Optimization - what is it, how does it work and differences in the ranking criteria of major search engines.

1. How Search Engines Work

The first basic truth you need to know to learn SEO is that search engines are not humans. While this might be obvious for everybody, the differences between how humans and search engines view web pages aren't. Unlike humans, search engines are text-driven. Although technology advances rapidly, search engines are far from intelligent creatures that can feel the beauty of a cool design or enjoy the sounds and movement in movies. Instead, search engines crawl the Web, looking at particular site items (mainly text) to get an idea what a site is about. This brief explanation is not the most precise because as we will see next, search engines perform several activities in order to deliver search results – crawling, indexing, processing, calculating relevancy, and retrieving.
First, search engines crawl the Web to see what is there. This task is performed by a piece of software, called a crawler or a spider (or Googlebot, as is the case with Google). Spiders follow links from one page to another and index everything they find on their way. Having in mind the number of pages on the Web (over 20 billion), it is impossible for a spider to visit a site daily just to see if a new page has appeared or if an existing page has been modified, sometimes crawlers may not end up visiting your site for a month or two.
What you can do is to check what a crawler sees from your site. As already mentioned, crawlers are not humans and they do not see images, Flash movies, JavaScript, frames, password-protected pages and directories, so if you have tons of these on your site, you'd better run the Spider Simulator below to see if these goodies are viewable by the spider. If they are not viewable, they will not be spidered, not indexed, not processed, etc. - in a word they will be non-existent for search engines.

After a page is crawled, the next step is to index its content. The indexed page is stored in a giant database, from where it can later be retrieved. Essentially, the process of indexing is identifying the words and expressions that best describe the page and assigning the page to particular keywords. For a human it will not be possible to process such amounts of information but generally search engines deal just fine with this task. Sometimes they might not get the meaning of a page right but if you help them by optimizing it, it will be easier for them to classify your pages correctly and for you – to get higher rankings. When a search request comes, the search engine processes it – i.e. it compares the search string in the search request with the indexed pages in the database. Since it is likely that more than one page (practically it is millions of pages) contains the search string, the search engine starts calculating the relevancy of each of the pages in its index with the search string.
There are various algorithms to calculate relevancy. Each of these algorithms has different relative weights for common factors like keyword density, links, or metatags. That is why different search engines give different search results pages for the same search string. What is more, it is a known fact that all major search engines, like Yahoo!, Google, Bing, etc. periodically change their algorithms and if you want to keep at the top, you also need to adapt your pages to the latest changes. This is one reason (the other is your competitors) to devote permanent efforts to SEO, if you'd like to be at the top.

The last step in search engines' activity is retrieving the results. Basically, it is nothing more than simply displaying them in the browser – i.e. the endless pages of search results that are sorted from the most relevant to the least relevant sites.

2. Differences Between the Major Search Engines

Although the basic principle of operation of all search engines is the same, the minor differences between them lead to major changes in results relevancy. For different search engines different factors are important. There were times, when SEO experts joked that the algorithms of Bing are intentionally made just the opposite of those of Google. While this might have a grain of truth, it is a matter a fact that the major search engines like different stuff and if you plan to conquer more than one of them, you need to optimize carefully.
There are many examples of the differences between search engines. For instance, for Yahoo! and Bing, on-page keyword factors are of primary importance, while for Google links are very, very important. Also, for Google sites are like wine – the older, the better, while Yahoo! generally has no expressed preference towards sites and domains with tradition (i.e. older ones). Thus you might need more time till your site gets mature to be admitted to the top in Google, than in Yahoo!.

How to change Brigntess and Contrast in Photoshop using Levels

The levels tool can move and stretch brightness levels in a histogram using three main components: a black point, white point and midtone slider. The position of the black and white point sliders redefine the histogram's "Input Levels" so they are mapped to the "Output Levels" (default is black (0) or white (255), respectively), whereas the midtone slider redefines the location of middle gray (128). Each slider is shown below as they appear in Photoshop's levels tool, with added blue labels for clarity:

All examples below will use the levels tool on an RGB histogram, although levels can also be performed on other types of histograms. Levels can be performed on an individual color channel by changing the options within the "Channel" box at the top.

ADJUSTING THE BLACK AND WHITE POINT LEVELS

When considering adjusting the black and white point levels of your histogram, ask yourself: is there any region in the image which should be completely black or white, and does the image histogram show this?
Most images look best when they utilize the full range dark to light which can be displayed on your screen or in a print. This means that it is often best to perform levels such that the histogram extends all the way from black (0) to white (255). Images which do not extend to fill the entire tonal range often look washed out and can lack impact. The image below was taken in direct sunlight and includes both bright clouds and dark stone shadows — an example of where there should be at least some regions that are portrayed as nearly white or black. This histogram can be extended to fill the entire tonal range by adjusting the levels sliders as shown:

Histogram Before Levels	Histogram After Levels
Lower Contrast	Higher Contrast

On the other hand, be wary of developing a habit of simply pushing the black and white point sliders to the edges of the histogram — without also paying attention to the content of your image. Images taken in fog, haze or very soft light often never have fully black or white regions. Adjusting levels for such images can ruin the mood and make your image less representative of the actual scene by making it appear as though the lighting is harsher than it actually was.
One should also be cautious when moving the black and white point sliders to the edge of the histogram, as these can easily clip the shadows and highlights. A histogram may contain highlights or shadows that are shown with a height of just one pixel, and these are easily clipped. This is often the case with low-key images (see histograms tutorial), such as the example shown below:

Histogram Before Levels	Histogram After Levels
No Pixel at Full Brightness	Stronger Highlights

Holding down the "ALT" key while dragging the black or white point slider is a trick which can help avoid shadow or highlight clipping, respectively. If I were to have dragged the highlight slider above to a point which was further left (a level of 180 was used, versus 235 above), while simultaneously holding down ALT, the image would have appeared as follows:

If the image is fully black while dragging a black or white point slider, then no clipping has occurred. When the slider is dragged over where there are counts on the histogram, the regions of the image which have become clipped get highlighted as shown above. This can be quite useful because knowing where the clipping will occur can help one assess whether this will actually be detrimental to the artistic intent of the image. Keep in mind though that clipping shown while dragging a slider on an RGB histogram does not necessarily mean that region has become completely white — only that at least one of the red, green, or blue color channels has reached its maximum of 255.

ADJUSTING THE MIDTONE LEVEL

Moving the midtones slider compresses or stretches the tones to the left or right of the slider, depending on which direction it is moved. Movement to the left stretches the histogram to the its right and compresses the histogram to its left (thereby brightening the image by stretching out the shadows and compressing the highlights), whereas movement to the right performs the opposite. Therefore, the midtone slider's main use is to brighten or darken the midtones within an image.
When else should one use the midtone slider? Consider the following scenario: your image should contain full black and white, and even though the histogram extends to full black, it does not extend to white. If you move the white point slider so that it reaches the edge of the histogram, you end up making the image much brighter and overexposed. Using the midtone slider in conjunction with the white point slider can help you maintain the brightness in the rest of your image, while still stretching the highlights to white:

Histogram Before Levels	Histogram After Levels
Sky Not At Full Brightness	Stronger Highlights Similar Overall Brightness

Note how the sky became more pronounced, even though the overall brightness of the image remained similar. If the midtones tool were not used, the image to the right would have appeared very overexposed. The same method could be used to darken the shadows while maintaining midtones, except the midtones slider would instead be moved to the left.
Note: Even though the midtones slider is always initially at 128, it is instead shown as 1.00 to avoid confusion when the black and white points change. This way, the midtones slider is always at 1.00 even when the other sliders have been moved. The midtone "Input Level" number actually represents the gamma adjustment, which can be thought of as a relative measure of the number of levels on the sliders left to those on its right. Thus, values greater than one mean there are more levels are to the slider's right, whereas values less than one mean more levels are to its left.

ADJUSTING LEVELS WITH THE DROPPER TOOLS

The histogram levels can also be adjusted using the dropper tools, shown below in red:

One can use the dropper tools on the far left and right to set the black and white points by clicking on locations within the image that should be either black or white, respectively. This is often not as precise as using the sliders, because one does not necessarily know whether clicking on a given point will clip the histogram. The black and white point droppers are more useful for computer-generated graphics as opposed to photos.
Unlike the black and white point droppers, the middle dropper tool does not perform the same function as the midtone slider. The middle dropper actually sets the "gray point," which is a section of the image that should be colorless. This is useful when there is a colorless reference object within your scene; one can click on it with the dropper tool and removing color casts by setting the white balance. On the other hand, it is better to perform a white balance on a RAW file format since this reduces the risk of posterization.

OTHER USES FOR THE LEVELS TOOL

The levels tool can be performed any type of image histogram in addition to the RGB histograms shown above, including luminance and color histograms. Performing levels on a luminance histogram can be useful to increase contrast without also influencing color saturation, whereas levels on a color histogram can change the color balance for images which suffer from unrealistic color casts (such as those with an incorrect white balance).
Levels can also be used to decrease the contrast in an image by modifying the "Output Levels" instead of the "Input Levels." This can be a useful step before performing techniques such as local contrast enhancement since it avoids clipping (because this technique may darken or brighten the darkest or brightest regions, respectively), or when your image contains too much contrast.

PRECAUTIONS

• Minimize use of the levels tool, as anything which stretches the image histogram increases the possibility of posterization.
• Performing levels on a luminance histogram can easily clip an individual color channel, although this may also allow for darker and brighter black and white points, respectively.
• Performing levels on an individual color histogram or channel can adversely affect the color balance, so color channel levels should only be performed when necessary or intentional color shifts are desired.

How to convert face into Cartoon in Photoshop. Face to Cartoon in Photoshop! Convert Photo Face into Cartoon.

1. Open an image that you would like to manipulate. Make sure your image is in RGB mode. To check this, go to Image under the menu bar - Mode - RGB Color.

Make a duplicate of this layer as you will be working on this layer going forward. 

2. Now we will be applying the Poster Edges filter. To do this, go to Filter > Artistic > Poster Edges.

3. After the Poster Edges effect, we will Adjust the Brightness & Contrast with the values: Brightness Value: 10 Contrast: 30.

 

4. Now we will do an artistic cut out effect to give it that cartoon look. Go to Filter > Artistic > Cut Out. And this is what you get!