It is one of the most sought after tutorial for a beginner in Photoshop. It helps a designer or
photographer to remove the person from a poor background to a high quality background with ease. I use two
methods for this (there are several methods to achieve this)
1. Quick Selection Method
2. Pen Tool
In this tutorial, I will use Background Eraser Tool and Quick Selection Tool to achieve this. The Background Eraser Tool is used to select the hairs neatly
METHOD
Step 1
Load the image on Photoshop using CTRL + O to load it from your folder in your computer
Step 2
Chose the Background Eraser Tool. You can use the shortcut E
Apply the following settings. Chose Sampling Once in the control panel
Then in the limits, chose Contiguous
Then in the tolerance, chose your value. A lower value for tolerance makes Photoshop to delete less of your photo since it can help it distinguish foreground and background color.
Leave the "Do not erase the foreground swatch" icon unchecked
In my brush settings, I leave the hardness at 100%, size at 13% and spacing at 25%
With all these settings applied, brush with Background Eraser Tool around the hair as lightly as possible. See this result
Step 3
Go to Quick Selection Tool or use letter W
With the quick selection tool, continue to select other part of the image. This is done by holding the left mouse and dragging while the Quick Selection Tool is selected. If you want to remove any part from the selection, hold ALT key (Option for Mac) and drag around the area you want to remove.
To add an area to your selection, release the ALT key and continue dragging while your left mouse is held. You can increase or decrease the size of the selection tool by using the bracket keys [ or ] respectively.
The + sign shows we are adding to the selection
Step 4
After making the whole selection, right click and chose Layer via Copy
A new layer is automatically created with the image cut off the background.
To see this change, hide the visibility of the background layer
Step 5
Copy the image. Make sure you select the layer with the image already removed from the background. Go to Edit > Copy
Step 6
Open the background you will like to change with your own using CTRL + O
Step 7
Go to Edit > Paste. The image with the background removed appears in our new background.
Use free transform (CTRL + T) to resize the image to your taste. Hold Shift key to keep it in proportion while resizing
You can also apply adjustment layers. Use Color Balance, Hue/Saturation, Level, Curves to adjust the image blending and make it look realistic.
Now you have a good looking image with the background changed
Before
After
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