Learn advanced techniques for removing a hiker from a background image in Photoshop. This article guides you through a step-by-step process to ensure you get smooth and consistent lines.
Key Insights
- The article continues from a previous guide, detailing the process of meticulously working around the hiker's image to remove him from the background.
- It introduces several tools in Photoshop and their functions, especially the Quick Selection tool, the Magnetic Lasso tool, and the Polygonal Lasso tool which are used to create and modify selections for a more precise result.
- The tutorial also emphasizes the importance of frequently checking your work and deselecting after each step to ensure that no parts are missed or inaccurately selected.
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In this video, we're going to continue removing the hiker from the background. Let’s begin where we left off.
I’ll hit CTRL D to deselect, then use my Quick Selection Tool and draw around his hat. Starting from the bottom right, it looks like we've hit everything correctly, so I’ll right-click, click Fill, hit OK, and then hit CTRL D to deselect.
Looking at the top of his hat here, I see that I may have missed just a little bit. We’ll add it to our selection and reduce it from our selection here.
Right-click, click Fill, hit ENTER, and we’ve removed that line from the hat. Next, we’ll just keep moving down the line. Create the selection, and as we can see, I still have my old selection. So instead, I’ll hit CTRL D to deselect and start the selection over.
Let’s zoom in, scroll over, and this looks like it’s done a pretty good job with the exception of this corner. Let’s zoom in closely. This time, I’m going to use the Magnetic Lasso Tool.
We’ll select Add to Selection, and I’ll simply click, as this tends to hug many of the lines I’m working with. I’ll complete the shape, and it’s now added to the selection. I’ll then release, right-click, click Fill, and hit ENTER.
Let’s now continue going down and work on the right-hand side. I’ll hit CTRL D to deselect, and we’ll work down the bottom-right side of our hiker. I’ll remove this piece of his elbow and make sure I get some of these leaves.
We’ll go down the bottom-right side of his elbow, and for this, I’m going to again use the Polygonal Lasso Tool. We’ll go up the top of his elbow, and clicking multiple times will create a shape consistent with his elbow. Once we close off the shape, it will be added to our selection.
I’ll do the same thing here, adding to the end of his elbow, close it off, and we’ll zoom out.
We can then right-click, click Fill, and hit ENTER.
I’ll hit CTRL D to deselect. This looks good.
Although this may be a crease in his jacket, I’m going to remove it since it could be distracting.
I’ll simply go over the edge, create a shape, right-click, select Fill, and hit OK.
I’ll do the same thing right down here.
Right-click, select Fill, and hit OK.
I’ll hit CTRL D to deselect, and now this looks better for the end of his jacket.
Even though we’re removing pixels that are part of the jacket, it’s helpful when transferring this image to other places, ensuring smooth and consistent lines, even if they’re not technically accurate.
Let’s go back to the Quick Selection Tool, and continue down the jacket.
This should be easy since there are nice lines here. Scroll down, go right along his jeans, and down to the right of his shoe.
Then, we’ll deselect up to the edge of the boot, right-click, click Fill, and hit ENTER.
Next, let’s start working on his shoes.
I’ll hit CTRL D to deselect, and the shoes are a little tricky since they’re the same or a similar color as the ground.
I’ll hit ALT, try to pull in some of the edge, and go back and forth using ALT to add it to the selection and subtract from the selection.
We’ll remove this bottom part of the shoe, the top, and now we’ll fill this.
Hit Fill, hit ENTER, and let’s now go up this side.
We’ll hit CTRL D to remove our selection, zoom in a little closer on the shoe, and simply add to our selection here.
Draw it all the way up through the middle. I’ll pull in this piece of ground.
This looks pretty good. There’s the edge.
I’ll use the Lasso Tool, and the selection looks pretty good.
Let’s look at all the sides.
Oh, I missed this piece right here. Let’s add it.
I missed this piece down here. While the Quick Selection Tool can be good at adding it, it sometimes misses pieces.
We’ll right-click, click Fill, hit OK, and finally, let’s work on this other side.
Use the Quick Selection Tool to start, hit CTRL D to deselect, and we’ll hit ALT to go around the shoe, telling Photoshop we want the shoe.
Let’s get this whole last section, all in one, and it looks like we have a pretty good line.
Right-click, click Fill, hit OK, and hit CTRL D to deselect. It looks like we’ve hit the entire border of our hiker.
Well done. Let’s stop here, save our work using CTRL S on the keyboard, and in the next video, we’ll finish removing our hiker from the background.
See you there!