How to mask correctly and convert to colorkey?

[psphufi]

Hi there,

I am trying to mask the bird correctly in this photo as shown in the screenshot, but I am not successful! I want to keep the colour inside the masking and convert the background to black and white.

Who can help me how to do this exactly?

Thank you very much!

[Jean-Luc]

Duplicate the Background layer.
Swap the duplicated layer to Black and White (Effets/Photo Effects/BW Film)
Use the Eraser tool with Smart Edge checked and erase the bird.

DSC01583-Eraser.jpg

...or
Invert your selection and apply black and white to the inverted selection.

[psphufi]

What, it's that simple???
I had enormous difficulties in marking the bird exactly, as one of the pictures shows.
And besides, I had found a tutorial from Corel in which something like this was explained in a very long and very complicated way - and I hadn't understood it!
Therefore: many thanks for your short but effective explanation!
Now that I've got that, I'll be able to use it more often in the future!

Have a good time!
Norbert

[LeviFiction]

While it wouldn't work with this image as there are too many similar colors, I do have a free script called B&W Highlighter. It lets you sample a single color from the image and it desaturates all but that one color. Or two colors if you use the 2 color version of the script.

https://levifiction.wordpress.com/2020/ ... ghlighter/

Because it uses an adjustment layer to do this, you can also paint with black on the adjustment layer over your subject to clean up any edges that weren't properly selected. This is because Adjustment Layers have built-in masks. It's not perfect but does a decent enough job.

[psphufi]

@LeviFiction

I tried this script: In fact, it is very easy to keep the bird in its green colour, also the feeding net underneath. But green parts of the background were also preserved.

How I then have to work "with a black mask" to get the colour of the beak and the eye, I did not understand. In addition, I also have to remove the green parts of the background. See screenshot script.

Surely the development of the script was not easy, but in the end the few steps as described by @Jean-Luc are much easier and more effective... See screenshot 2.

And with the Indian, I am left with too many reds, e.g. in the leaves.

Sorry!
Have a good time,
Norbert

[LeviFiction]

Nothing to be sorry about, like I said it won't work well with this script because of the other parts of the image that are also green. The problem you're describing is exactly why I said it wouldn't be a good fit with this image. It works best with images where the color you want to highlight is the only color of it's kind in the image. A kid wearing red gloves and a blue coat on a snowy day and you want the red gloves to pop, select the red color, run the script. It's done.

I didn't say a "black mask" I said, paint with Black on the adjustment layer. Take the paint brush, set the foreground color to black, and paint on the layer. It'll turn the adjustment layer "off" on those areas. But again, this won't work with this image of the parrot because there is green everywhere. This script, only for future reference should you want it, can isolate a single color very easily.

[psphufi]