Selection technique

[ryuggen]

hiz,

Any gurus here can recommend a all in 1 selection technique? I have some problems selecting tricky subjects, especially those with whisky or furs and feathers. Care to share your unique selection methods?

[Youhong]

Magic wand is not fool proof.... Going by colour selection may not be accurate...

The best is to use pen tool... Accurate to your own eyes... Just that it can be rather troublesome...

OR, you may one to use masking?

[raptor84]

Masking seems to be the best solution. You can try doing a manual lasso selection (use the shift and alt keys to add or sub track the selection then use a layer mask for the finer parts.) You can also try feathering in the selection menus.

[Dan]

Use channel...

[ryuggen]

I work with extract or magnetic lasso plus mask. Looks all right. I wonder if there are equivalent better plugins for difficult subjects.

How to use channel?

[creampuff]

Originally Posted by ryuggen I work with extract or magnetic lasso plus mask. Looks all right. I wonder if there are equivalent better plugins for difficult subjects. How to use channel?

This technique works for hair, fur, etc.
Go to channels. Look at the different channels and select the one where the hair/fur to be masked appears darkest. Duplicate that channel. Next go to levels and move shadow slider to right until hair/fur edge goes black. Use lasso tool and make selection on those areas that need to be masked out (eg, cat's face, model's face). Set foreground colour to black and fill selection with black. Paint with white anything else that is not to be masked. Invert the channel. Load the mask as a selection, go back to orignal image and copy on a new layer. Get rid of any white (or black) edge with remove white (or black) matte command.