In my very first photoshop tutorial i will go over the really powerful advanced channel masking technique. Many times an editor needs to isolate an object from a frame, in this case we'll remove the entire sky background from a high density-high quality picture of a tree.
The stock used in this tutorial can be found here:
http://i54.tinypic.com/11817hh.jpg
Advanced Channel Masking? Huh?
Using a tool such as the lasso tool, pen tool, magic wand tool etc. can seem quite efficient at making a selection HOWEVER in this case none of the tools would do you any justice based on the factor of time consumption, accuracy and efficiency. This is where the advanced channel masking technique will help. Basically you will choose between the 3 RGB channels and decide which one has the biggest contrast between colors (which one has a higher contrast of white and black), in this case the Blue RGB channel was used. With the Blue channel being the only one selected we appy several image calculations and level modifications to basically end up with a black and white silhouette of our entire shot. You are then easily able to create a selection, invert it as you please and layer via cut/copy or adjustment layer it. Leaving you with a very accurate mask of the object you want isolated. In this video I will also show you how to remove decontaminated colors and also apply some fine tuning. Hope you guys enjoyed it, and be sure to request a tutorial!
Find me on deviantart:
http://blastedash.deviantart.com/
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