Monday, November 24, 2008

EXTRACT THE MAIN SUBJECT

You will often want to separate a person or an objectfrom the background so that you can use the personor object on a separate layer or in another image.You could painstakingly paint over the person orobject with a brush in the Quick Mask mode or selectthe area with another selection tool; however, theExtract filter may make a better selection, especiallyfor delicate or detailed areas, such as trees or hair.When you use the Extract filter, Photoshop erases thebackground of the selected area and makes it transparent. The filter looks for contrasting edgesunder the area you highlight. For pixels on theedges, it removes any color derived from thebackground to avoid having an edge halo when thetem is placed on another background.Although it is a sophisticated tool, the Extract filtermay leave some areas that need to be touched upbefore your selection is complete. You can refine andix the extraction with another layer and otherPhotoshop tools.



1 Open a photo with a subjectthatyou want to extract fromthe background.
2 Duplicate the Background layeras shown in Task #11.
3 Click here to turn the visibility offfor the original Background layer.
4 Click Filter.
5 Click Extract.
6 Click the Edge Highlighter tool.


7 Click here and move the slidertoadjust the brush size.
8 Trace around the edges of theareas that you want to keep.
9 Click the Fill tool.
10 Click in the area you want tokeep.
11 Click Preview.


12 Click the Clean Up tooland draw around anyragged edges to removeexcess background.
13 Hold the Option (Alt) keydown and paint in theimage to fill in any areasthat dropped out.
14 Click the Edge Touchuptool and draw aroundany rough edges to cleanthem up.
15 Click OK.


16 Press (Ctrl+J) to duplicate the layer.Note: Duplicating the layer generally fixesother dropped-out areas.
17 Press (Ctrl+E) to merge the twoextracted layers.

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