Expert: Kevin Stohlmeyer - 7/7/2011

Question
Good day...

I have these photos with black backgrounds. I need to extract this photos because my customer wants to have the photos to be placed in a yearbook without  the background...

My question is how do I extract this photos with the hair of the subject is also colored black?

Here are the sample photos...

http://i815.photobucket.com/albums/zz78/real_matrix24/arcenophilipTOGA.jpg

http://i815.photobucket.com/albums/zz78/real_matrix24/agudotimothyTOGA.jpg

http://i815.photobucket.com/albums/zz78/real_matrix24/agudomarcoTOGA.jpg

Please help me...


Thank you...
Louie

Answer
Hi Louie,

Unfortunately, this is why it is best to shoot on a neutral gray, light blue background. The only thing I can suggest is to duplicate the layer so you can blow out the photo using Levels to get some contrast between the hair and background, but in the end, no automatic function is going to work for this. You will have to make the selection manually with tools or using Quick Mask.

Sorry

Kevin