Learn the steps to continue refining the selection of a construction worker from a photo and changing the background to black and white using the quick selection tool, fill, and paintbrush tools in Adobe Photoshop. The tutorial provides detailed steps on how to ensure even the most minute details are not overlooked, ensuring the professional quality of the final image.
Key Insights
- The process involves using the quick selection tool to select regions of the image, then filling these regions in black to turn them into a black and white background, ensuring that all areas around the construction worker are covered.
- Special attention is given to details such as cables, the construction worker's clothing, and the white glare in the image. These areas are handled with care by zooming in and using the paintbrush or the selection tool to either add or subtract them from the selection.
- By repeatedly checking the mask, the tutorial ensures that no areas are overlooked and that the final image has a clear outline of the construction worker in color against a black and white background. This process involves alternating between adding and subtracting from the selection, using black and white fills, and resizing the brush to cover errors or missed sections.
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In this video we're going to continue pulling out our construction worker with the mask. Let's begin where we left off.
Let's go down to the bottom here. We'll hit CTRL D to deselect, and with the quick selection tool, we're going to want to select this pole, and this pole, all the way around him. Now, I'm going to use ALT to reduce from where his pants are. I'll adjust the size, and let's make sure to get this bolt.
We can then right-click and fill, and click OK, and everything turns black and white. However, we can see that we've missed some of this cable right here. I'll hit CTRL D to deselect, and I'm simply going to come in right here, right-click, and click fill, and OK.
Alright, for our last section, we have his other leg over here. We're going to select everything outside of his leg, and using the 'minus' subtract from selection, we're going to reduce all of this. We'll right-click, hit fill, and click OK.
Next, let's use our paintbrush to get the last couple of sections. We'll hit CTRL D. Remember, if we're painting in black, we'll be making it black and white. So, I'll hit some of this right down here, and let's get just the edge here.
Let's now zoom out, and if we hit ALT while checking the icon for the mask, we can see that we have color in all the white places. However, it looks like this section to the side of his shoulder is missing, so we'll want to fix that. Let's zoom in, and now we're going to go to our selection tool, and we'll just select that area.
Zoom in a little more, and hold ALT. We've already got this top section, so we can remove it from the selection. We just want to fix this side.
I'll hit ALT to subtract it from the selection. I'll right-click, select fill, black, and OK. Now, if we hit ALT, we can see that we've removed it. In addition, we have this white glare here, and we can cover it up with the paintbrush.
We'll select the paintbrush, hit CTRL D to deselect, and as we can see, we have a good outline of him. However, we have a couple of spots to take care of. So, painting black, we'll right-click, expand the size of our brush, and simply cover all of these small errors.
We'll hit ALT and look at the icon. It looks like we missed some of this section. It's not too close to him.
We'll hit ALT, and let's just cover it with black.
We right-click, and we can increase the size to cover all of that up. Next, if we zoom out, we'll see that we have a white spot here.
Zoom out again, and we have some issues up top as well. Finally, let's zoom in down below, and let's examine a couple of key spots. The first are these black lines right here.
We hit ALT, and click on our image.
We'll hit ALT, click the mask, and then we're going to change our fill color to white and click OK.
And we'll simply ensure that we hit those. I'll right-click, reduce the size, and paint over that.
Next, let's look at what's happening down here.
We hit ALT and click on our icon.
This should all be black and white below, right about here. So, there's the bar, and we can color all of this in black.
We'll change our fill color to black. Click OK, and we color all of this in. I'll right-click to increase the size.
And if we zoom out, we can see that we have our mask.
Let's now look into this area on the right and the bottom to see what's happening here. If we hold ALT and click on the thumbnail, we can see that it's right about here.
We decide that for that, we can simply make it black. So, I'll color it in. Hit ALT.
However, some of the black is fading into the white. So, let's look over here and see what's going on. Hit ALT and click.
Let's create a hard line here against it. To do this, we'll use the quick selection tool. I'll simply click right up against it until we have a nice line.
Hit ALT, and then I'll right-click, click fill with black, and OK.
We hit ALT and look at it. Now, we have a cleaner line.
Let's now look down here. Right at the bottom, we don't have a very clean line. So, let's actually fill it with white this time.
We'll select his leg here, minus the bar and the bolt. We'll get in some of his pants here. And this time we're going to be selecting him, rather than the area we want black and white.
We can also deselect this area above. Let's zoom in a little closer. We now have the area selected that we want in color.
We'll fill it with white. We'll right-click, select fill, and for the contents, we'll choose white, then click OK. Now, you can see there's a little blue there.
If we hit ALT and look at it, it's now all white.
Let's use the brush tool to fill in this edge with black. We'll hit CTRL D, fill it in with black, and it looks good.
Let's zoom out. We'll hit ALT as we click on the icon, and we've accomplished what we set out to do.
We have our construction worker in color and our black-and-white background.