Selecting Hair is Easy – Basix
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Selecting Hair is Easy – Basix

on May 18th 2011 with 48 comments
Tutorial Details
  • Program: Adobe Photoshop
  • Difficulty: Beginner
  • Estimated Completion Time: 6 Minutes

Final Product What You'll Be Creating

This entry is part 21 of 29 in the Photoshop Basix Session
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Are you new to Photoshop? Have you been trying to teach yourself the basics of Photoshop but have found the amount of educational material available on the net a bit overwhelming? As the world’s #1 Photoshop site, we’ve published a lot of tutorials. So many, in fact, that we understand how overwhelming our site may be to those of you who may be brand new to Photoshop. This tutorial is part of a 25-part video series demonstrating everything you will need to know to start working in Photoshop.

Photoshop Basix, by Adobe Certified Expert and Instructor, Martin Perhiniak includes 25 short video tutorials, around 5 – 10 minutes in length that will teach you all the fundamentals of working with Photoshop. Today’s tutorial, Part 21: Selecting Hair is Easy will explain how to combine selection tools, the non-destructive use of the Eraser tool, refine mask, and pen tool. Let’s get started!

 
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Rollover to read this author's bio or click through to see a full list of posts by this author.

Martin is a Hungarian graphic designer, digital artist and an Adobe Certified Expert and Instructor (Design Master). He is currently teaching and working in London but usually travels around the UK and share his love for Adobe products and graphic design. You can follow him on his blog or on Twitter.  

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  • http://serhaninchina.nl/author/serhan/ Serhan Uygur

    Super awesome! :)
    I am an advanced designer but hair is always very difficult! :) Thanks!

  • http://www.behance.net/josephnicklo mug25

    Nice! Good tutorial. Something people have to do on a regular basis.

  • fred

    you could do it this way…….or the correct way.

    • djheru

      Perhaps instead of snarkily insinuating your own superiority, you could record a screencast demonstrating the “correct” way. You would probably garner more respect.

    • Craig

      Can’t wait to see your tut on the correct way.

    • pedromau

      wich is?

    • http://www.behance.net/josephnicklo mug25

      Ever hear the saying “Theres more than one way to skin a cat.” ?

      When it comes to production work (like clipping paths, cutting out hair, color correction etc.,) there are so many ways to get the job done. For contrast, some users may use Brightness/Contrast, some may use Curves, some may use Levels — the point is, in Photoshop there are so many different ways to do the same job. It all depends on the user.

    • http://www.kieru.com Rob

      If you have a better method of doing this I encourage you to write a tutorial on the subject and see if Tuts+ is interested in publishing it. Might as well put your knowledge to use and make some cash. Or you know, you could just complain.

  • strido

    The correct way is the way it gets done.
    Nice tut! Very helpful.

  • Joe

    I love it when they Dropped the opacity on the collar. FAIL!

  • aaron

    Wow, its amazing, and simple! Thank You!

  • Brian

    In a perfect world, we have a subject that is contrasted nicely from the background. When trying to mask out a subject that is of a similar contrast/exposure to the background, the magic eraser is very tedious and ineffective. You can play with your tolerance, but in some situations you just won’t get good results. I tend to rely on traditional masking techniques in these situations.

    I’d like to see the author take on some more difficult subjects with the tools he’s recommending, or alternatively suggest different tools when the “magic” tools and refine edge, fall short.

  • Hugo

    Nice tut but if you look closely you can see that a part of his head has less opacity at the top. For future tuts and other project just be sure to check the edit before you release it! Though some good techniques :)

    • http://www.kieru.com Rob

      I may be mistaken but the final product image actually looks like it was done before the final step in the video, where the author notes the opacity issue and demonstrates a quick method of correcting it.

    • http://www.yesimadesigner.com Martin Perhiniak
      Author

      I totally agree and I’m sorry but the final result image is actually not the final result. I have already sent the corrected final result to Grant so hopefully it will be replaced soon.

      Sorry for that guys, it was my fault. Thanks for your comments!

  • Gyca

    very, very useful this session. I learnt a lot of things. Thank you.. You did a very good job.. :D

  • PTDNTB

    It is a very nice, yes please!

  • http://www.sonnydesign.com sawebdesigns

    It’s useful and easy thanks

  • http://barkwit.com Jared

    NEVER etch with Magic tools.

    Take the extra 5 minutes to etch with the Polygon Lasso and Lasso tools so you know there’s no rogue pixels, rough anti-aliasing, or missing data; things all Magic tools most certainly cause.

    Down the line you may use that etch over and over just to find one of these issues are screwing things up. And while you’re zooming in and inevitably re-etching the job with lassos, you’ll wonder “Why didn’t I just do this in the first place to save some time?”

    • http://www.behance.net/josephnicklo mug25

      The beauty of the History Brush. If the Magic based tools screw something up you can use the History brush to bring pieces of the image back.

  • Trevor

    Same as usual, great Tut. and thanks

  • Mike

    I’m with Fred on this one.. This selection is a piece of shit, even with a simple background like he used!

    • Valstorm

      There seem to be a few comments here regarding the final result of the image used in the video. Keep in mind, these tutorials are instructional videos on how to use the tool palette that comes with Photoshop.

      The video is 6 minutes long, do YOU spend 6 minutes refining masks and selections in Photoshop? I certainly hope not, even for an image as easy to mask as the one selected for the video, I would not spend less than 20 minutes on any background masking where hair is involved, it’s an intricate process that requires many passes to get a good result.

      This Tutorial is a great way of introducing fledgeling designers to the tools, regardless of the end result, which was used as an instructional piece in any case.

      Seriously people, are you on a tuts website or are you critiquing an art exhibition?

      • http://www.davidvandam.eu Davidovich

        AMEN tot that! If someone is such a ‘pro’, why even watch these basix tuts…

  • http://web.cruciald.com/blog_now.php John

    Wow great tutorial! I have been doing this stuff for years and still selecting hair is one of the most difficult things to do. Great tips and tricks here to speed up your workflow….

  • Mikey

    Interesting way to select hair I say :)

    I use the Calculations method (Dodge/Burn the selection) to clear cut hair, I find it far more accurate and you don’t get the background colours showing through the hair. I wouldn’t rely on magic tools to be accurate enough for top commercial work.

  • Oh Great Flagellator

    This tutorial is amateur beyond words. There’s a MUCH more professional and cleaner tutorial on how to do this at Planet Photoshop.

    Honestly, most of the tuts on PSD tuts are just kids messing about.

    • http://bibikova.com ben

      Thats a nice way to promote your site I guess

    • Silvana

      This is the BASIX section if you haven’t noticed.

  • http://www.cgvector.com cgvector

    i Haven’t seen the video but i just see your final image i think you use feather for this this is not a right way to do this you have to do with pen tool and neat cropping using pen tool.

  • Newbie

    I was practicing using different selection technique and I cam across this image (http://www.sxc.hu/photo/1340622).

    Anyone know how I would select the cat from the image including the fur?

  • http://www.aphrodite1994.com Mark

    It’s always one of those issues you hate having to do but at some point need to. Tutorials like this are invaluable when you’re starting out because cutting out hair can be a real pain.

  • http://www.wpvine.com Vishu

    A very neat tut, thanks a lot Martin!

  • http://www.wkndphotos.com/ Noushad

    Thnx a lot Martin :)

  • Spidxel

    What version of PS??? CS5 ???

    • http://psd.tutsplus.com/ Grant Friedman

      Martin uses CS5.

  • hi

    The layer mask options are only available with PS5, right? Cause I have ps3

  • http://www.alherabd.com shohidul

    wow! it’s indeed extraordinary photography tutorial.I think, this is one of the bests. thanks and keep it up………..

  • wazzupman

    My fastest way of selecting hair is simply to select the outer canvas and then use the Refine Edge option with the new selection tool in CS5. Works great.

  • http://mokshasolutions.com Moksha

    I know photoshop but I am following your tuts from part 1, only problem is you are taking time between each tuts

    thanks for hair selection tuts

  • http://bibikova.com ben

    CS5 certainly has some nifty tools to get the masking job done.
    I know many folks say that this is not the best method, or the author chose too of a simple image to work with. In most situations you will not be cutting a tree out of the forest just because its awesome. You would hire a photographer to isolate the subject first, and then cut it out. You cannot perfectly cut out a subject out of complex background, even with tedious traditional methods….well maybe you can for the small scale web image. In most cases you would be working with studio subject nicely separated from the background.

  • Phoenix.rising055

    So…what’s the correct way?

  • http://2000ah.blogspot.com/ Edward

    Hair always drives me nuts, thanks for the tutorial.

  • HY KUN

    I’m beginner, and actually I use photoshop pretty long time ago….
    I like this web, but I use CS3 ><

  • Adrian

    I really enjoy your site’s written tutorials, but it’d be great if you guys could put your videos up somewhere that’d be playable in little ol’ New Zealand. I realise that this blip.tv site probably makes you a little extra money through advertising, but unfortunately it doesn’t work here :(
    ~A

  • Elvy

    This is a very good tutorial video! Thank you!

  • Elvy

    What version of Photoshop did you use? I just can’t find Masks Panel in CS3!

  • Sam Rocky

    I am working on a image that has a tree green leaves in background and the ashle color background.its really hard for me to remove the background.Can you please make a tutorial how to remove bg with intact hair in transparent or different color bg