Overview of Skills and ideas
First, quickly select the body and shrink the selection. In combination with the channel with the greatest contrast, use the Burn tool and dodge tool to process the edges to eliminate the jagged edges of the selection.
For another method of smoothing selection, see Smoothing Selection Techniques – Quick Selection Tools.
The original image,
rendering
General steps and instructions
1. Use the “Select Subject” command or the “Object Selection Tool” (Photoshop 2020) to select the middle subject, and then use the lasso Tool, object Selection Tool, etc to complete the selection.
2. Save the selection as an Alpha channel and name it “Select Body”.
Method 1: Right-click a selection in the Selection Tool and choose Save Selection.
Method 2: PS menu: Select/save selection;
Note: Selection with the Main selection command, the quick Selection tool, etc., often leaves obvious jagged edges, especially the bare skin edges in portrait photos, so smooth selection is needed.
3, view all primary channels in the channel panel, find the channel with the greatest contrast between the main body and the background (usually blue channel), drag to create a new channel button to copy it.
4. Press Ctrl/Cmd and click on the “Select body” channel to load it as a selection.
5. Select the “Blue Copy” channel, fill the current selection with pure white, and deselect.
Note: If the background is dark and the body is light, fill the current selection with pure white. If the background is light and the subject is dark, fill the current selection with solid black.
6. Use lasso Tool to roughly outline the main outline, and then fill it with black and deselect it.
Note: This and the rest should be treated separately according to the filling color of the body and background. In this example, the body is filled with white and the background is filled with black.
7. Zoom in on the image until you can see the edges, then use the Burn Tool (Blacken) or Dodge Tool (whiten) to process the edges.
Description:
(1) Burn tool and Dodge tool: shortcut key: O
(2) You can hold down Alt/Option key to switch between burn and Dodge tools.
(3) The Settings of the burn tool and dodge tool: the hardness is 100%, and the size should be slightly larger than the edge area. Select the range (highlight, shadow and middle tone) and set the exposure value according to the actual situation.
For the area you want to whiten, use dodge Tool and select highlights for the range.
For the area you want to darken, use the Burn Tool and select shadow for the range.
(4) You can also use the Burn tool and Dodge tool after retouching the edges with the brush tool.
8. Press Ctrl/Cmd+L to change the background to black using the black straw. You can also adjust the black and white sliders to add contrast.
Description:
(1) If it is the area with hair in the portrait photo, you should use the lasso tool to roughly select it, and then execute the color level command after reverse selection.
(2) For the hair area in the portrait photo, it can be reversed again, and then use the deepen tool or dodge tool to optimize the selection (at this time, the exposure value is generally low). \
9. After deselecting the selection, load the blue Copy channel as a selection to mask the layers in the Layers palette.
10. (Optional) If necessary, select the layer mask and continue to optimize the selection, such as using the Brush Tool, or go to “Select and Mask” and adjust the “Smooth” option if there are still jagged edges.