PSadv – 02 and 03

Cropping and Masking

This is the first part of two about how to separate images from their background and what to consider when replacing their background.

Home Assignment

Work along the videos and upload your cropped practice examples on a colorful background to padlet.

The Basics

Magic Wand Tool

Select and Mask – refining the edges
Quick Selection Tool

Masking with Vectors

Pen Tool and Vector Mask

Masking information from Colors

Tree

Hair, fringes and custom edges

Hair on light Background

Tips for fringes at the edges
Edge with custom brush

Keeping the original shadow

Know How

Blend If

How To Use “Blend If” In Photoshop Like a PRO:
The Definitive 7-Minute Guide

Blend Modes

We all have surely used them already but do we really know what exactly they are doing? Knowing your Blend Modes will let you work more freely and it will be less Photoshop telling you what looks good but more the other way round.

Blendmodes change the colours of underlying layers according to the lightness and colour values of the layer the blend mode is applied to.

The most important ones are these three groups:

Darken, Multiply, Color Burn, Linear Burn and Darker Color

A layer with one of these blend modes only affects the underlying ones in a darkening way according to the darkness of the layer itself. 

  • White has no effect 
  • Black has maximum effect

Use these Modes for:

  • Shadows
  • Light images with dark elements
  • Textures that are based on white
  • …

Lighten, Screen, Color Dodge, Linear Dodge, Lighter Color

A layer with one one these blend modes only affects the underlying ones in a lightening way according to the lightness of the layer itself. 

  • Black has no effect 
  • White has maximum effect

Use these Modes for:

  • Lights
  • Dark images with light elements
  • Textures that are based on black
  • …

Darken, Multiply, Color Burn, Linear Burn and Darker Color

A layer with one one these blend modes affect the underlying ones in both a darkening and a lightening way according to the darkness or lightness of the layer itself. Thus creating more contrast.

  • Black darkens
  • White lightens
  • Neutral Gray (128) has no effect

Use these Modes for:

  • Lightening and Darkening with one layer
    (f.e. sketch lines in Duck painting)
  • Small detailed Textures after Effect High Pass was applied
    (sand, fabric, paper,..)
  • Custom noise layers
  • Every time you want to save the original tones and values and still want to apply some texture/noise/…

High Pass explained:

Links

The Science of All 27 Blend Modes in Photoshop!

Layer Masks 10 Tips

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