 Senior Member
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Join Date: Sep 2011
Location: Manchester
Posts: 264
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A quick and easy mask
I found this through experimenting with textures.
A quick and easy mask to keep even the smallest hair when superimposing a textured background. IT ONLY WORKS ON DARK BACKGROUNDS LIKE GREY AND BLACK, NOT JET BLACK. I find it best on grey though.
A quick tip. If you shoot a subject against a white wall then expose the wall to turn it grey/darker with the shutter and keep the light/lights from spilling onto the wall (unless you are using a black or grey background) and control the lighting with your aperture or power or ISO (but remember the ISO will also effect the ambient so you may have to alter the shutter speed again) I'll stop now as i am getting way off track
1. Open your image and duplicate it. (i always duplicate even though i may not have to at times.)
2. Open your texture image and drag it to the image you are editing.
3. Set the layer of the texture to softlight.
4. Add a mask to the texture layer.
5. Select a soft brush.
6. Paint on the mask of the texture layer with black and paint out the texture from the subject.
You will then have to do level,curve and sometime colour adjustments to the texture layer ONLY (i won't go into that though as i am getting off track) to make it fit the image better. I haven't done it with this as i want the mask to stand out better.
Its as easy as that. Layer options are your friend if you know how to use them.
Hope you like it and saves you time in the future with having to do complicated masks.
[IMG][url=http://www.flickr.com/photos/54634685@N08/6146394531/]
[IMG][url=http://www.flickr.com/photos/54634685@N08/6146943878/]
[IMG][url=http://www.flickr.com/photos/54634685@N08/6146944030/]
Here Is a Before & After of something i did a while back. As you can see everything technical is done in camera and then edited to taste.
Its called chained and was fun doing it, especially when the fake blood didn't come off my hands after i put it on him. You can imagine what he said
I removed his tooth and made the rest dirty. I also removed his thumb as it looked odd, probably due to the lens i used and i also added dirt to where i missed.
Lighting-
1 x bowens with BG reflector for the BG.
2 x bowens with grids fitted, one at each side of him and slightly behind.
1 x bowens with a large Softbox fitted to camera left.
[IMG][url=http://www.flickr.com/photos/54634685@N08/6146944130/]
[IMG][url=http://www.flickr.com/photos/54634685@N08/5374492999/]
Oh and this is the image I did of the girl in the examples above. Its called The mirror never lies
[IMG][url=http://www.flickr.com/photos/54634685@N08/6146411593/]
A quick and easy mask to keep even the smallest hair when superimposing a textured background. IT ONLY WORKS ON DARK BACKGROUNDS LIKE GREY AND BLACK, NOT JET BLACK. I find it best on grey though.
A quick tip. If you shoot a subject against a white wall then expose the wall to turn it grey/darker with the shutter and keep the light/lights from spilling onto the wall (unless you are using a black or grey background) and control the lighting with your aperture or power or ISO (but remember the ISO will also effect the ambient so you may have to alter the shutter speed again) I'll stop now as i am getting way off track
1. Open your image and duplicate it. (i always duplicate even though i may not have to at times.)
2. Open your texture image and drag it to the image you are editing.
3. Set the layer of the texture to softlight.
4. Add a mask to the texture layer.
5. Select a soft brush.
6. Paint on the mask of the texture layer with black and paint out the texture from the subject.
You will then have to do level,curve and sometime colour adjustments to the texture layer ONLY (i won't go into that though as i am getting off track) to make it fit the image better. I haven't done it with this as i want the mask to stand out better.
Its as easy as that. Layer options are your friend if you know how to use them.
Hope you like it and saves you time in the future with having to do complicated masks.
[IMG][url=http://www.flickr.com/photos/54634685@N08/6146394531/]
[IMG][url=http://www.flickr.com/photos/54634685@N08/6146943878/]
[IMG][url=http://www.flickr.com/photos/54634685@N08/6146944030/]
Here Is a Before & After of something i did a while back. As you can see everything technical is done in camera and then edited to taste.
Its called chained and was fun doing it, especially when the fake blood didn't come off my hands after i put it on him. You can imagine what he said
I removed his tooth and made the rest dirty. I also removed his thumb as it looked odd, probably due to the lens i used and i also added dirt to where i missed.
Lighting-
1 x bowens with BG reflector for the BG.
2 x bowens with grids fitted, one at each side of him and slightly behind.
1 x bowens with a large Softbox fitted to camera left.
[IMG][url=http://www.flickr.com/photos/54634685@N08/6146944130/]
[IMG][url=http://www.flickr.com/photos/54634685@N08/5374492999/]
Oh and this is the image I did of the girl in the examples above. Its called The mirror never lies
[IMG][url=http://www.flickr.com/photos/54634685@N08/6146411593/]
 Senior Member
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Join Date: Apr 2008
Location: West Cork, Ireland
Posts: 7,578
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Oh wow! 
Thank you so much for this thread, very useful tips indeed - and some super shots - especially the finished piece with the little girl - what a great concept!
Can we sticky this one Azz?
xx
Thank you so much for this thread, very useful tips indeed - and some super shots - especially the finished piece with the little girl - what a great concept! Can we sticky this one Azz?
xx
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 Admin Team
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Great stuff Jonni, thanks!
If it's ok with Moonie I think we can move this one to 'Master Class & Tutorials'
If it's ok with Moonie I think we can move this one to 'Master Class & Tutorials'
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 Community Director
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Jonni, I would just like to say thank you for sharing some of your knowledge with us. What a great little tutorial.
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