Photoshop Help!

flame boy

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I am sure out there in the wilderness of LPSG there is someone who will be able to shine a light on the following problem.

I have edited a photograph of a person and wish to place it on another background. When I try to place the image on the new background the image has a jagged edge to it. I would obviously therefore like to smooth the edges of the photograph (hair being especially problematic).

I searched on Youtube and found endless videos but none of them seemed to really address the issue of how do you smooth the edges of a selected image so that they appear softer and blend with the background?

Ack, does this make sense?
 

Kotchanski

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Have you tried slightly increasing the "feather" of the cut edge? I do this when whitening peoples teeth in images for example so that they don't end up looking like something out of a horror movie with white razor sharp teeth.

Don't know if it'll work, different things for different images and all that, but it would be my first try...
 

petite

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If you are using the magic wand tool to select, you can select "refine edge" from the select menu and manipulate the smooth, feather, contrast, and radius to help smooth the edge. If you use feather when you cut, it will make the edges fade into the background.

What areas are you having an issue with? Hair? Hair can be especially tricky.
 

unique_exposure

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Ahhh. Send me a PM for more info but here are some of the many ways...

Basic: Layer Mask. This is the best concept for removing a background because you can continue to refine it, its not just one step.
1. With Layers palate open... select the layer you want to change.
2. To create the mask --Click the little icon in the bottom row of the Layers Palate (little circle inside square: "layer mask"). The mask will appear to the right of the normal layer icon in the palate, with a lock to the left (make sure its selected instead of the normal layer icon, to work on the mask).
3. You can work on this layer mask shading/filling black to block out / make transparent, white to make opaque. You can use many tools: lasso, wand, brush, gradient, etc and the changes accumulate so you can continue to refine. With the mask icon selected, click the brush tool to experiment and spray around the edges of the layer with black.

A quick and dirty way to soften an edge is Feather (do this before the brush/airbursh experimenting from above):
1. Select layer edge by control clicking the layer normal icon (left icon, not layer mask icon)
2. Feather: Option+Command+D (mac). Choose a radius of 4-15 px or so (experiment).
3. Click on layer mask icon (right side icon).
4. Select Edit > Fill [Black], or Delete (all same thing)
This just makes a uniform softer edge, overall. You can start with this and then refine with the brush, on the layer mask. For a harder edge selection use the Lasso and Alt+Click (win) to create a selection, then delete or fill black on that selection. Or Lassoo just to outline manually, like tracing.
Use the wand to select color blocks like an area of hair.

When you're done, save as a PSD-- you can come back and continue to work on the mask.
Save as jpeg when you're happy with it.

There are also plugins like MaskPro if you can get a hold of them.
 
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