Expert: LizaL - 6/5/2006

Question
Hey Lisa,

I think I have already asked you previous questions about cropping.  You are the most informative, so I'm coming back to you for more help. (By the way, your cropping advice was very, very helpful!).

I am still doing fashion photography and I still have Photoshop 7.0.  In many cases I want to make adjustments to just the model to make her slightly appear brighter than the background.  I am aware of the magic lasso tool, extract tool, and magnetic lasso tool.  However, these tools take a significant amount of time.  Additionally, I find that the cutout of the model is not as smooth transition-wise as I would like it to be.

Is there a faster, advanced solution that I can go about doing to make model extracts from their backgrounds.  Please help!

Donald

Answer
Hi Donald,

Thanks for your kind comments! I hope I can help you this time, too. If not, I'll try my best to steer you to someone who can.

You mentioned that you've tried the magnetic lasso and the extract tools -- I agree, in many cases, these don't give the smooth results you're looking for. But have you tried Quick Mask?

Quick Mask is just what it says: a fast way of making a mask, or a selection, within a photograph. You basically go into Quick Mask mode, then use the regular brush tool to "paint" on part of the image. The area you paint can either be a selection, or a mask. You'd make it a mask if you happen to be doing other things to the picture and want to protect this part.

In your case you could make it a selection, put it on another layer, and then make some adjustments to it.

Here's what I'm talking about, in steps:

1. In the Photoshop tool palette, double-click on the right-most button, in the section just below the fore- and background color swatches:
http://little-works.com/all_experts/quickmask_enter.gif

2. You'll see a dialog box come up, asking whether you want the color (that you'll be brushing on your picture, in a minute) to indicate Masked areas, or Selected areas. In your case, tick Selected areas. You can leave the Opacity at 50%. The color in the color swatch box can be anything you like; I usually keep mine red.

3. Now choose a brush from your tool palette. For the example movie below, I chose a fat, soft brush -- this isn't a big issue, since you can go back and edit your selection.

4. Simply brush the areas you want to select. You'll see them turn a transparent color -- whatever color was chosen in your enter Quick Mask dialog.

5. When you're finished, click on the *other* button below the fore- and background swatches to *exit* Quick Mask mode. You should see the areas you brushed appear as an active selection.

6. Since you want to separate your selection from the rest of the picture, and edit it, I'd go to your Layers palette and select new Adjusment layer for Levels or Curves (I chose Levels for the movie). You're free to edit just the model now, leaving the background intact.

Here's the movie example -- please bear in mind this is just a *quick* example, and with your photos you can be as exacting as you need to be. I've just done this quickly so you'll see what I'm talking about. I also just did the little girl's face and hair; after all, I didn't want to clog up your server trying to play a huge movie!

http://little-works.com/all_experts/quickmask.mov

Here's another movie where I did basically the same thing, only I used Quick Mask to delete a background and move another background into the picture:

http://little-works.com/all_experts/quick_mask4.mov

You can use Quick Mask very quickly (hence the name, LOL!), then go back and edit your selection while you're in Quick Mask mode, just by choosing another brush and painting some more, or by clicking on the Select pulldown menu and then Expand or Contract, to enlarge or reduce your selection.

You can also change brushes on the fly in Quick Mask mode (as you see me do in that first movie) for fine-tuning things like hair or thin areas.

Hope this helps! And if the movies don't play or load too slowly, post back and I'll email them to you.

Lisa