Well someone had asked me if I could change out a background on a picture she took and I went to all the work of explaining how, so I thought I’d share it here too…
Well this is it, I may ramble but I’ll do my best to explain!
Here’s a screen shot of the image to begin with.
1. Then I switch it into mask mode (which I circled in yellow) then switch my brush to the size I want. And color in all of the people. I am masking all the stuff I want to cut out. Two things to remember: 1. Make SURE your mask opacity is set to 100%. (You’ll see at the top in the middle just down from brush size). You can tell it isn’t if you are “painting” over the people and you can still see through to them. When you color over them you should be covering them completely. The default on most versions of photoshop is set to 50% so the first time you’ll probably have to change it. 2. Around the edges you need to use a brush that is sharp. You’ll fix up the little hairs later but try and be as close as possible in this step. I pointed out on the history pallet where it says you are in “Quick Mask Mode” to do this step.
2. This is them all outlined. (FYI you can change the color of your mask if you WANT to… but I always leave mine red. It stands OUT!)
3. Then you are going to switch back out of Quick Mask Mode by hitting the same spot you used to get INTO it. Layers Palette with say “exit Quick Mask mode”.
Then you go to select > inverse. Ends up looking like this.
4. Copy and paste onto a new layer (Macs – Apple+C, Apple+V)
5. Because Eileen wanted the same background just bigger, I selected some of the background that I wanted to extend with my Lasso tool and copied it onto it’s own layer (Apple+C, Apple+V)
Then used the move tool to drag them around making more and more of them (this will also make them all on different layers). So you can then select all of those and merge them (either by grouping them (apple+G) or select them all and merge (apple+E)). It looks like this as you go along. You do that until you have enough space covered.
6. When the new background you created is a new layer, add a small amount of gaussian blur. (this only works with THIS kind of a background that isn’t really something specific.)
Then take your healing brush (apple+J) and fix up the spots that look a little off… you should see what I mean. I circled some spots so you can see them. Then crop the picture. The bigger the empty space you just made the more you will notice the background seems unnatural.
7. Then it is time to go in real close and fix up the small spots of extra previous background you had. You need a feathered brush. One of these ones.
Then you are slowly and carefully going around the edges of the people. Their hair, their arms, the edges of their shirts, etc. You need to use a small brush and sometimes even lower your opacity of your brush so that it is taking off just a tiny bit. This is the part that will make it look the most natural. I circled some spots that HAd NOT been done yet so you can see what I mean.
8. Then flatten your image and save it. All done!
Any questions??