How To Select Transparent Objects for Compositing

Video Transcription

Welcome everybody to the Photoshop Tip of the Week.  I am Woody Walters.  I am so excited for two reasons.  One is that we have got a great tip and the other is that next month the June 5th – June 9th I am going to be teaching at the Kansas City Professional Photography School.  If you are in the area be sure to go on over there and sign up for the class.  It is going to be one heck of a class!  We are going to hit the ground running.  It is going to be all about creating what they cannot.  We are going to have some new and exciting techniques to apply to your photography and I think it will really help you out!

But, hey, let’s get on with that tip.  I was playing in Topaz and I want to show you something that is really really cool.  So watch this.  We are going to select this girl.  But if you look at this girl and the umbrella that she is holding, the umbrella has some unbelievable transparent qualities to it.  And it would be a pain in the butt to go in there and get that.  So we are going to use Topaz.  We are going to click on Filter, go down to Topaz, and click on remask.  And then we are going to come down here, boom, and we are going to do everything just like we would normally do.  I’m going to get a bigger brush and we are just going the size down a little bit.  We don’t need quite that big of a brush.  And I am just going to make an outline here of everything that is going on.  Let’s get that.  Boom.  And we will get her here and here.  Let’s magnify a little bit so we can get down into there.  Let’s make that a little bit smoother.  Now I am holding the shift key down and we are going to grab this.  Now we are going to do her hand.  And we will go ahead and grab all of these.  We are going to want those.  Boom.  So we are just going to do this, and then bring this down over to here.  And we will bring this down.  We want to get those zippers and so on.  And we will bring that down, and slide this all the way up.  Good.  We are going to get her arm and these little strings coming off of her.  We are going to get this area and then the rest of that umbrella.  So I am just going to bring this down and now we will bring it up.  Good.  And we will come down over to here.  Boom.  And we will bring this over and come back to where we started from.  Good.  Right there.

Now let’s zoom out of that, oops, lets zoom back in.  We need to get these edges here.  So we are going to make our brush a little bit smaller.  We are going to go right there and hold the shift key.  Hold the shift key and now let’s get the rest of her arm here.  Boom.  Good.  And we also have a little bit on the right side that we need to do.  And that area is kind of tough.  So right now we will just bring that in and we are just going to bring this over.  Good.  And we are going to get some of these globs in her hair.  And we are going to look at that.  We are going to zoom out of it and make sure that we got everything.  That is looking pretty good.  Yeah.  Now we are going to get out red dropper and we are going to hit here, we are going to hit here, and we are going to hit here.  I think that is about it.  Let’s do compute mask.    

Now, this is the part that I really want to show you.  Watch this.  It is almost nice it you work this in regular mode too, but right now I am going to use this.  I am going to come over to transparencies.  And you will see that I have a green eyedropper.  Green is what you want to keep again.  So I am going to click the green right here on the black area.  Boom.  And not it turns red and I am going to click on that gray area.  Now it gives me a brush.  Watch this.  I am going to take that brush and I am going to hit this.  Watch how well this does the job.  Pretty unbelievable.  I am just going to come in here.  We are going to hit that and then say okay.  Look at that and the way if pick all of that out.  So now we are going to come down to here, and I am going to click right here.  I got the grays over there and now we will click the grays right here.  Boom.  And now let’s walk that up.  Look at this.  Boom.  Good.  Now it gave me a little bit more up on top here, but we are going to have to super magnify it.  So I am going to say okay here.  Now I am going to click right on that gray.  Now we will reduce our brush.  Tell me that is not fantastic.  Look at this!  Tell me that is not fantastic.  Look at that.  Now we are going to say here, we are going to say here, and we are going to paint all of this in.  Get all of that.  Boom.  Good.  Now let’s come back to here.  We are going to want this and we are going to want that.  Now let’s clean up this area.  Good.  So now that I am here and this is looking really good, we are going to go back to normal mode.  I am going to go to green.  And I am just going to get this part of her hair.  I could maybe clean up this just a little.  Boom.  Good Good Good!  Look at this.  I am going to come down here and get part of the zipper.  It is going to be a bear to me.  Part of her butt.  Good.  We are going to magnify.  Don’t be afraid to magnify.  The key to all of this is edge contrast and magnifying.  You know that.  So we are just going to play off of this.  It is looking good!  Come over here and clean that up.  Clean this up.  Clean that up.  Let’s go to W, make it red.  Clean that up.  Okay it looks pretty good.  Let’s go back to green.  Clean these up.  Let’s go right here and clean up those zippers.  Zippers are a pain in the butt, that is all there is to it.  All right.  Let’s see what is going on down here.  And let’s clean that up.  And definitely clean this up.  And people I am being a little picky, you know me.  Being a little picky.  All right, so now let’s zoom out of that.   And we have got some things over here that we need to clean.  Good.  Clean that up just a little bit.  That is looking pretty good.  Let’s zoom out of that.  Look at that umbrella.  Now let’s do Mask Strength, 50%, let’s do Recovery 100%, Lets hit desaturation, about 85%, 80%.  Good.  Now look in here.  Let’s zoom out.  Again.  Now look at this transparent area of her umbrella right in here.  This is what I am talking about.  Let’s go back to transparency, click on green, click on gray, and let’s get to our brush, make it bigger, and we will clean that up.  Let’s look at that, and it is looking great.  Same thing here.  WE have gray here and we have gray here.  So we are going to go here and we are going to go there.  And now we are just going to clean that area up.  And it just cleans up in between all of this.   Look at that.  It is fantastic.  See if there is anything over here, and there is.  We are going to click there and I am going to click right there.  We will hit that just to be sure and it is looking pretty good.  Now look at how well it did that!  Look at the strings here.  Look at this!  It is wonderful.  Absolutely wonderful.  That is pretty dog gone good!  I’m going to say compute mask.  So we are going to move this up.  And we are going to click on okay.

Now let’s put in a new layer here.  Go between them.  Boom.  And we are going to hit that with white.  Now look at that and tell me that is not lovely.  Better yet, lets hit that with a gradient.  So we are going to go white to black.  Look at that.  Is that not cool!  I like it a little bit more, so make that gradient a little more spread out.  Good.  Look at that!

So there is how you can use a transparent layers in Topaz.  It is really kind of cool and it you look in here you can really see it.  You can see all of those nice fine threads coming through.  It is wonderful.  It is a good way to play with that.  So there is your photoshop tip of the week!  And be sure to check out the Kansas City Professional Photography School.  You will really have a great time and what you learn that will be fantastic and you will be able to apply it.  Until next week I am going to tell you to shoot from the heart and shoot with passion, and we will see you for the photoshop tip of the week at woodywaltersdigitalphotocandy.com.