Robertpaul Photography
Sarah - Monochrome Soft
Posted by Paul Wright (Wiltshire, United Kingdom) on 15 March 2008 in People & Portrait and Portfolio.
I'll pop some technical stuff up tomorrow.....................cus I've been working on this for ages and I'm off to bed!
Technique
Cut head and shoulders from background. I use the following tool: magnetic lasso. Now change to mask view (this option can be found at the bottom of the tool palette.)
Use the eraser and brush tools to tidy up the mask. Now revert back to normal view. Select inverse by right clicking on marching ants and select inverse (it's not the head and shoulders you want to remove here. Lol!). Now go to Layer > Matting > defringe. Set at 1 pixel. Click ok. This will make for a cleaner mask. Now hit delete on your keyboard........hey presto! The background is removed. open a background of your choice and drag the head and shoulders so it sits above the new background layer.
Now follow all steps as in the Sarah C http://robertpaul.aminus3.com/image/2008-03-13.html portrait and then do the following:
Now select both layers. To do this hold down crtl and click on each layer in the layers palette. Right click and select 'merge layers'. You now have one layer.
Convert to black and white: Image > Adjustments > Channel Mixer. This will open the 'Channel Mixer' dialogue box. Set the green, red, blue and constant (use constant sparingly as if you were controlling contrast) as you wish. All four figures should add up to approx 100 when you add/subtract the four figures. Once you're happy with your settings click ok.
Now dodge and burn to your hearts content!
Leave any sharpening to last. Always apply sharpening with the image at 100%.
Again that's it.
Remember to save little and often throughout the process.
Happy Photoshopping!
