6 Replies Latest reply: Jan 22, 2012 9:17 PM by razyrazter RSS

    removing shoulder and leaving hair draped over it

    razyrazter

      I am changing clothes in a picture, so I am trying to remove a shoulder (skin color) and keep the hair draped over the shoulder. Some of the colors are pretty close and I'm having a hard time extracting the hair. Basically I want to keep the face, hair (including hair draped over shoulder), neck , and chest.

       

      I would appreciate help in trying to accomplish this.  Thank You!

       

      Win 7 64 bit

      CS5 64 bit

        • 1. Re: removing shoulder and leaving hair draped over it
          c.pfaffenbichler Community Member

          One could think a screenshot or lores of the image in question might help us assess the situation better …

           

          Anyway, have you checked which one of the channels offers the best separation of the two colors?

          You could also duplicate the image and convert that to Lab to check if the a- or b-channel offer better separation – but they probably lose much of the detail.

          If nothing else helps you could try to paint the Mask (or even the hair).

          • 2. Re: removing shoulder and leaving hair draped over it
            Noel Carboni Community Member

            Have you followed the techniques described by Russell Brown in this video?

             

            http://tv.adobe.com/watch/the-russell-brown-show/masking-basics-in-photoshop-cs5/

             

            I have found them very powerful for isolating hair believably from a background...  There's more info in this thread:

            http://forums.adobe.com/message/4112816#4112816

             

            One of the images I posted in that thread (in my January 1 4:05pm post, specifically) seems to have dissolved into the ether.  That was this one:

             

            BlueBackgroundRemoved.jpg

             

            -Noel

            • 3. Re: removing shoulder and leaving hair draped over it
              razyrazter Community Member

              Yes, I did see that video. I actually used those techniques to help me remove the background. I tried to use it to do the rest, but it didn't work very well.

               

              Here's the pic I'm trying to alter.

               

              me transparent bkgd2.png

               

              Now I'm trying to remove from the halter straps out on each side of the body (including the halter straps and slightly more on the left shoulder since the bottom of the hair comes down a little past the halter strap). I'm having major trouble separating the hair from the shoulders though.

               

              The Blue channel seems to separate it the best; still not the greatest though. Green & Blue together seem to separate it even more. I don't know how to convert to Lab and do the a- b- channels. I'm not that advanced of user.

               

              Any suggestions?

              • 4. Re: removing shoulder and leaving hair draped over it
                Doug.S Community Member

                for strap removal, do small increments of stamp or any of the healing/patch tools or even content aware fill....lots of tedious trial/error/repair/undo

                 

                Try copying a section with the hair and body, work on it at high zoom-in in another layer or file to manually delete unwanted pixels, then re-paste back only the hair into its place in a new layer so you can put something else in a layer under it

                 

                You can try another method of purposely developing wrong contrast and colors to differentiate the hair from the skin, then remove unwanted, then restore the original colors/contrast

                 

                You can used various color channels, combined or manipulated in various ways, altered to select out the hair (or invert for body or vice-versa) as a mask.

                 

                Keep searching web for making selections...or see deke.com or Deke at lynda.com for more techniques...there are many approaches.

                • 5. Re: removing shoulder and leaving hair draped over it
                  Noel Carboni Community Member

                  I don't know the background behind why you're working with this image - perhaps its the only one you have - but in general I'd say you'd want a higher quality image to work with to get any kind of good results out of masking techniques.  If you can't see the individual strands the computer can't see them either.

                   

                  -Noel

                  • 6. Re: removing shoulder and leaving hair draped over it
                    razyrazter Community Member

                    Thanks! I'm going to try these techniques and watch some of the videos.