Expert: Scott Valentine - 12/21/2009

Question
I use CS2.  I want to extract a person's head with wisps of hair.  You say that the extract filter has been removed from CS4 as there are better means of performing this function.  What would you suggest from the CS2 package?

Answer
Hi Gunter,

I would start by looking at the RGB channels individually, and using one of those as a starting point for a mask. This really depends on how much contrast or difference there is between the hair and the background. If there is any texture or color variation on the background, or its too similar to the hair, things will be much more difficult.

The basic idea is to find the channel that looks closest to a good mask, duplicate that as an alpha channel, and use various cleaning tools to further isolate the hair from the background. You can use levels, curves, dodge/burn, and even apply image (or calculations) to increase the contrast. However, the exact methods you need to use will be based on the starting image.

Can you post an example? If so, i can give you better direction.

-Scott