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Channel Based Selections

Lesson 20 from: Hidden Photoshop Tips & Tricks

Jesús Ramirez

Channel Based Selections

Lesson 20 from: Hidden Photoshop Tips & Tricks

Jesús Ramirez

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Lesson Info

20. Channel Based Selections

Lesson Info

Channel Based Selections

basically in Photoshopped, as I say, said earlier with the tractor is a lot of ways in which you can select select images or select items in photo shop. Um, you could make a quick selection. You can use any number of things, but one of the things that most people don't think about it it's channels. So with the channels panel, you can just make a selection of different things. Um, these are all really masses, really what they are. If you were in my earlier class, we talked about how these channels are essentially mass that control. How much light of each individual channel is being applied by that same logic, we can load these channels as selections said We hold down the command key, the control key on the PC. We can make a selection of the bright pixels in the image. With that in mind, we can come back into and the border that my layer ago. Here it is. We can come back into this image and just create a layer based on that, and I mean, that's not a great layer mask, but at least you get...

the theory behind it. What we can do instead is decide which of these channels has the most contrast between the foreground in the background. And now I'm already gonna tell you right off the bat that this is probably one of the hardest things to select when you have wavy hair and trees and stuff in the background. So it's not gonna be a perfect selection, but I think it will help demonstrate technique so I can look at which of these channels has the most contrast between the foregoing background. This case is probably the Red Channel. I can duplicate that channel, and now I can work with it to make my selection so I can do what I like to call a garbage mask was, which is just clicking on the on the last hole toy compress Ellen the keyboard, silica lasso tool and just make a selection around the areas that you know for sure you don't want and I can make those black. I can go to edit Phil and so like black and then I can just and I know I missed a spot there, but that's OK and I can continue working on on on the selection. I can also go into image, um, apply image. And I can essentially apply a version of his image on top of this, um, channel, but also apply a blending mode. Currently, the blending with that selected is multiply, which is why the image got darker. I could also select some flight which creates more contras, which is probably what I will do in this case. And again, I'm experimenting here. Um, you could try, screen or multiply. So probably there's something like stuff flight, because they don't give me more time looking between the contrast between the foreground in the background there and I can just press. Okay, so, um, this method is here is called channel based elections. I'm just using the channel to make a selection. At some point, you can just come in here and then use the Dodge and burn tools. The burn tool makes things darker. We have exposure said to 50%. That's right up here, right there. And we did continue just making the background darker and again, I'm not going to take the time to do it perfectly, But you can see how even here in the hair, I'm already doing a good job just because I'm telling photo shop only make dark pixels darker, but not the bright one. So the strands of hair or light So, um, not really affecting them also her finger. I'm not really affecting it. I am affecting this strap of the backpack. But that's okay. We can always come back and add that in later if we need to. And now it just becomes a process of making areas darker or making areas brighter. We could also use the brush tool and paint with white in the areas that we know for sure that we're gonna want to keep your when I will keep this area. So painting with light. I know this is a real mess right now, um, painting with white. And this will be good for this example. And I'm gonna play with black right back here so that that's more or less what channel based election is. Then you can hold command, click on the layer mask, going to layer, and, um, ask her out. Now, depending on the background, in most cases, you probably are gonna have to refine it. But that is essentially what channel based election is now. The reason that I went through. This whole process is to show you that u um oops about that is that you have let me delete this layer. Here are layer masks and this one is well, actually created. A vector mask is that you have these three chance to work with him. We created this layer mask, but in reality, we have more channels to work with because I can convert this with smart objects so we don't actually change the colors, But I'm gonna go into image ah, mode. See him like a don't merge, don't pasteurize press, OK? And if we're going to a channels panel now, we have more channels to work with, so let's just assume that not assume legis Pick one so well and this this is not the best example. But, um, we could be probably could do something with maybe maybe this channel, cause we could use the outlines here and then use the like, the filter legibility inside. But the point is, is that we have now more channels to work with and we have to do is duplicated, save it and then go back into the layers panel going toe image mode. RGB click on the one Merge, don't rasa rise. And if you go back into the channels panel, we have that other channel that we saved from that previous, um, color mode. And we can either adjust this or apply it to to this other channel either or so we wanted to apply the channels together. You guys already saw that works in one image, um, apply image and weaken, select um, a layer, or we can select the channel and we can select the blend mode. So maybe something like multiply and just continue working on that. So that was the reasoning behind the the, um channel based elections.

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Ratings and Reviews

Lael
 

Overall Photoshop Week 2017 has some amazing instructors for workflow & compositing. Jesus Ramirez has the unique ability to combine simplicity with really useful depth: blend modes, different approaches to selection or combining different tools. This course covers a lot of tools and there are a number of ‘wow! didn't know that!’ moments a more advanced user will love.

Amy Vaughn
 

Yeah yeah, Jesus Ramirez is a great instructor and this class is packed with useful tips and even some fun ones that might not be so useful. But it was that one about using two windows from the same document that changed my Photoshop life.

Elad
 

Jesus is excellent! full of knowledge and provides a lot of helpful tips in a clear and easy to understand way. Only thing missing are captions for this class, for some reason. Otherwise, I wish there were more classes like this one.

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