Masking Frizzy Hair in Photoshop?

[JukeboxCriminal]

Anyone have any tips or have mastered a good technique for creating a mask around frizzy hair in an image?

I'm just working with a dvd screen capture so the resolution isn't the greatest. Right now I'm painting the mask around the subject with a brush, but doing the hair is very difficult.

[keithdavisyoung]

It's tough, i had to do the mask frizzy hair when i did this:
http://www.flickr.com/photos/2489759...7604820255136/


but this tutorial might help you out:


It takes a couple tries until you get what you want, but as soon as you figure out the best way to utilize your channel masking you'll nail it. Hope this helps dude!

[JukeboxCriminal]

Awesome! Thanks for the prompt reply. I'll give this tutorial a shot.

[standard]

i usually do a 100% hard brush in Quick Mask to rough in the head/hair area (or use the lasso tool). then i go back in with a 50% small brush and pick out shapes of hair.. depending on what the final application is, you don't need to be too precise - just enough to EVOKE frizzyness, and avoid the hair lookin too helmety. sometimes i even draw in hair to make it look a lil realerer.

[Pfahlert Creative Labs]

this could help...you laugh...as you try to work on masking fun.

YouTube - You Suck at Photoshop #4: Paths and Masks

[standard]

this is where a wacom really comes into play. pen pressure

[Chris G]

You don't want to go clean that shit by hand. No way. And you don't want to make your work on the original photo, you want to make a mask. If there is some contrast with the background, then that's easier. You want to make a layer mask. Start by duplicating a channel.

The video that keithdavisyoung posted is a good place to start. It's not exactly how I'd do it, but it's close. The problem is, that guy has made it too easy on himself by choosing a photo that is on a seamless white background. That is usually the end result most people are going for when silhouetting hair, so 90% of the work is done for him already. Regardless, the channel operation he does is a good one and the right place to start.

Duplicate your highest contrast channel. Up the contrast more (he uses Levels, I would use Curves, but that's just a personal preference), touch it up some.

Here is where we differ a bit more. He just uses it to make a selection and copy-n-pastes the image into its own layer. I would instead place that alpha channel into a layer mask. That way you can continue to refine it, make some manual fixes, and never touch the original art. I'm a big fan of the layer mask.

Here is another good trick=

Most people think you can only add one layer mask per layer.

Wrong-- You can make 6.

Just put the layer into a Group-- a group with only that layer. Then add a second mask by applying a mask to the group. A lot of people are surprised to know that you can even add a layer mask to a group. PhotoShop allows up to 5 nested groups. That's 5 more layer masks in addition to the layer mask on the original layer. Total, 6 masks.

That can come in handy when masking hair out of a more complex background than just a seamless white.

You can start with a layer mask using a high-contrast of a channel. Then, without disturbing your photo or your original mask from the channel, you can start a second layer mask to mask out other specific objects that may not have had the contrast needed to disappear from the simple channel duplication.

This is how I would approach it.

[HomeBrewed]

that's great info. didn't realize that.