video tutorials for cutting out hair with an image

[Leah Diane Howell]

Hi--

I just registered, and I am not sure if this is the correct place to post this question. I really would like to see Corel publish a few good video tutorials for removing people from backgrounds with particular emphasis on the hair. I like the new version X6 and the smart selection tool, as it has made cutting out images a lot easier; however, I have many issues with the hair and ensuring I capture the loose strands and fine fly-away hair. My selections of hair, even with the new smart selector, seem to resemble a "helmet head" and not what I envision in trying to capture the full person to place on another background. I crawl the web and see several video tutorials for Photoshop but hardly any for any version of Paint Shop Pro. It would be so very helpful, I'm sure to many users of Paint Shop Pro, to have some good video tutorials for selecting people in pictures and capturing the finer aspects of their hair. I see Photoshop has a "refine brush," and I'm not sure if this is something that should be an update or whatever. Anyway, HELP on selecting people from both complex backgrounds and solid color backgrounds who have fly-away hair or loose strands so my images will look more realistic with the hair when using different backgrounds.

[LeviFiction]

I believe Corel's main source for such topics are from customer support. When customers call in to learn something Corel will sometimes create special tutorials to better help people.

Corel's support employees ocassionaly drop by, or monitor the boards so they might see this. Can't say as they will respond or not though.

Many just use plugins like Topaz ReMask or Imageskill's Background Remover. These provide a number of excellent tools for doing more precise selections and masking.

Photoshop has more than just a brush, they haven an entire refinement dialog with wonderfully advanced settings.

If you want to do the same in PSP, advanced masking techniques are your best bet. Things that help to visually separate the hair from the background. It of course helps best to start with a really good image, where the hair is already pretty well separated from the rest of the background. Then you can use any number of tools.

PSP's automated tools are alright, but for best results I still love getting down and dirty with the selections and manually make adjustments and edits to it. It's very time consuming.

What I like to do is first split the image into its individual channels. Image -> Split Channel -> RGB. Then I check to see if any of those offers a good starting point for a mask. Where the background and hair are well separated. IF not, I try combining them in various ways, blend modes, arithmetic, I even edit them with brightness and contrast tools like Levels or curves. I can use the dodge and burn brushes to select only the highlights, only the shadows, or midtones. And very slowly build up a mask that I can use to select the individual with.

Doesn't always work. I really need more practice to get better.

[AnneJakala]

Where is the video link, I couldn’t find it. I would like to have a look once before using it.