Sam Kirkpatrick wrote:
> I have an Eagle that I want to move to a different background. The
problem
> I have is that the bird's edges are very detailed in spots due to the
> feathers and some of the current background is visible between the fine
> feathers. I tried selecting using the magnetic lasso but it gets
tedious
> quickly when I'm trying to surround these hundreds of fine feathers,
plus
> its going to look too sharp once moved to the new background.
Suggestions
> for moving this finely detailed bird? Pointers to any on-line sources
would
> be greatly appreciated.
>
> Thanks,
> Sam
>
>
This is a bit old school. I use CS3.
Go to the channels pallet and toggle through the channel to find the
channel which has the most contrast between the area around the
background and the feathers (assuming white part of the eagles head).
Duplicate this channel.
Switch to the brush tool and changes it's mode to overlay.
Change your colors to the default colors (black/white).
You may need to invert the channel (control-i) since white will end up
being your selection.
Paint on the duplicated channel (white being what you want to be
selected, black excluded from the selection), by starting in the white
of the feather and approach the edge of the feather. You will notice
that the brush will not paint, or very little blead, into the background
if the background is darker than the feathers. You may find the need to
switch to black and paint on the background to further refine the edge.
You may also need to go over the white and black multiple times to
make it completely white/black.
Fill in each area with 100% white/black either with a selection or using
the brush with mode = normal.
control-click the duplicated channel icon to make your selection, then
save your selection. You can now go back to the layers pallet, load
your selection, use refine edge and do whatever you want.
You may need to play with it a bit, but this method does work quite
nicely for this type of selection.
--
Len
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