If you want to see how your mask is doing, turn off the bottom layer by clicking on the "eyeball" next to the layer called "Background." I've done this many times to fine tune a mask. It's harder to explain than it is to do You can zoom in, and adjust the size and shape of the paint tool. Right clicking (which paints with the background color) covers up the lower levels. Normal painting with a left click let's the bottom layer show through. You're now ready to start painting and erasing where you want the bottom layer to show through. On the tool pallet (where there's the zoom, straighten, crop, etc), select Paint Brush. Two new sub-layers will appear.one called "Mask - copy of background," the other "copy of background."Ĭlick on the one called "Mask - copy of background." You'll notice that the material picker has gone to grayscale. Now that you have a black and white layer sitting on top of a color layer, right click on the layer called "copy of background," and pick "New Mask Layer->Show All. If you don't have the "Grayscale in place" script, you can achieve the same thing with Adjust->Color Balance->Channel Mixer, and make sure that the Monochrome checkbox is set and that the drop down for Output Channel reads "grey." You can then move the red/green/blue & contract sliders all over the place to make some of the strangest black and white you've ever seen, all the way from very light to super dark.lots of control here. You can clear the selection by typing CTRL-D. The current layer is now in black and white. In the script drop down, choose "Grayscale in place" and run it. Type a CTRL-A to select the entire contents of this layer.
Select top layer in Layer pallet (probably called "copy of background" at this point). After that, pressing the DELETE key clears the selection and you see the background magically disappear to be replaced by whatever your background color is over in the material picker.Īnd masking, how do I just mask off a part of a photo things like keeping something color in a B&W conversion.Īh! Start with going to Layers->Duplicate. If I wanted to delete the background on a portrait, I'd lasso-select the subject, then do the Selections->Invert menu option to select the area around the subject. After scrolling around and selecting what I want to isolage, most of the hard work is done. I've found it's faster for me to use the lasso tool while holding down SHIFT (to add to the selection) or CTRL to remove from the selection. I've had problems with the background eraser, either it eats into what I want to keep, or leaves too many artifacts around what I'm trying to isolate. Like with PS, there's several ways to do things. Is there anyway to erase all of the blue background at once? (I'm using a chromakey blue background) I know I can click and drag to erase, but that is a total pain. I wanted to know about background eraser and masking.Īs far as the eraser, I want to do some portrait shots and remove the background. Thanks for the replies, here are my questions. Other - Bogen tripod w/ ballhead, Vivitar monopod, Kenko tubes
Olympus PEN E-PL2 w/ VF-2, Panny 20, 14-42 II I used to frequent the forum a lot before moving on to PSE.Ĭanon Ti5 w/ 18-135 IS STM, 70-300 IS, 85 1.8
The link provided above is a great resource - post any questions there and I am sure they will be answered.
I think PSP is just a little behind the times now but maybe they will catch up in future versions.
Most of its limitations can be overcome with free downloads to add functions like curves and masks and the RAW converter is great. I now use PSE 3 which I upgraded to for $50 from the version 2 that came with my camera and I am very happy with it. And PSP does not support color management which is a major issue if you are serious about printing your photos. Some of the advanced tools they tout - like the noise filter and RAW conversion just did not do it for me. I tried versions 8&9 but never saw the need to upgrade. PSP really is a great program but I stopped upgrading at version 7.