OK, one thing that infuriates me, mostly just cause I’m an unabashed asshole, is poor Photoshop clipping paths. Even when I break off a shitty path, I get pissed. So I’m gonna hip you all to some basics of good pathing.

I know that most of you are working from your pencilled or inked lineart images, and as such, this will really not be of much help to you. But if you’ve ever thought, “Man, I wish I had it in me to clip that image out of the background,” but didn’t believe in your skills — I’m here to hook you up.

(The interfaces you’ll be seeing are on a Mac running OSX.3.9, and Photoshop CS. Your interface may be different, I have to rely on your knowledge of your own machine to get you past some of the inherent differences here.)

Firstly, let’s go over what we will NOT be using…

-> “Extract” filter.

Certainly a feasible tool for knocking a dark figure out of a white bg, but it doesn’t give you the subtle control you need for professional-quality compositing.

-> “Magic Wand” tool.

There is nothing ‘magic’ about this tool. If you’re working on a bitmap image, or you’re working in indexed color, fine, go for it — it’s helpful. But when you’re dealing with a good-quality photograph, it ain’t gonna cut it.

-> “Lasso” tool.

Technically, you will be using this tool, but only AFTER you’ve established a good path for the majority of the image, and only to create subtle adjustments to SECTIONS of the final product.

-> “Eraser” tool.

NEVER USE THE ERASER TOOL. It’s far better for your state of mind if you use a layer mask in conjunction with a black paintbrush. Same outcome, but you can go back if you fuck up. Even after you quit and come back days later.

Getting away from these ‘easy ways out’ is your first step towards creating really good paths and therefore exceptional composite images.

The tools we WILL be using…

-> “Pen” tool.

-> “Add Anchor Point” tool.

-> “Subtract Anchor Point” tool.

-> “Convert Anchor Point” tool.

-> Layer masks

-> “Select > Feather.” Real life doesn’t have hard edges. Feather everything.

-> “Lasso” tool — SPARINGLY, AND ONLY AFTER THE PATH IS DONE.

-> “Brush” tool — SPARINGLY, AND ONLY AFTER THE PATH IS DONE.

Aight, I picked an image that had a few things that perpetually cause problems and lead to bad paths, so I could go over how to escape them.

Some of the things in this image that make it hard are…

-> The hair. There’s errant bits of hair here that will be a significant pain in the ass.
-> The tuning knobs on the guitar. SUPER detailed paths will be necessary here.
-> The way his right side and ass have no definition against the background and the ground, respectively. We’ll be faking this part.
-> The foreshortening on his feet. Because it is his body which is in focus, the foreground has blurred edges (around the shoes) which NEVER look good once you’ve knocked the image from the background. But it can be fixed — have no fear.

STEP 1

The first thing you do is choose your “Pen” tool and make sure the preferences for the tool are to create a path and not a shape layer. Thusly…

Now, you just pick a point around the edge of the image and go for it. Start laying down points at every dip and curve the whole way around. Be really sloppy, don’t even bother staying too close to the edges. All you’re doing right now is smashing out a general outline (including inner holes in the image, such as the crook in the subject’s left elbow here). Keep in mind that as you go around a curved section, put one path point in the ‘valley’ of the curve and one path point at the ‘peak’ of the curve. That’s pretty much it the whole way around. This step, even on a detailed pic such as this, shouldn’t take you more than 10/15 minutes, and when you’re done, it should look like this…

And here’s a closeup of some curved sections, so you can see what I mean about how to place your points…

You see, especially around the fingers holding the chord, what I mean by one point in the ‘valley’ and one point at the ‘peak.’ Additionally, you see here how long curves (such as the shirtsleeve) just have a big ole straight line along em, and ‘curved squares’ (such as the head of the guitar) have two points around a curve. Also, those tuning knobs. Just mash around em for a general shape, don’t worry about being sloppy.

STEP 2

Now, switch your active tool from the “Pen” tool to the “Convert Anchor Point” tool. (see above, under ‘tools we will be using.’) This tool is going to be your main man for the next hour or two or three or ten.

“Convert Anchor Point” tool…

You’re gonna have to play with this one a LOT before you master it. Period. So I suggest just grabbing a point and playing with it. Here’s the main thing, though — keep a finger near the Apple key. (Alt key? Function key? Dunno PCs.) The reason is that when you’re using this tool and you hold down that key before grabbing any point or ‘arm,’ the tool temporarily becomes a white arrow, which allows you to move the point as is, or to adjust one of the ‘arms’ without converting the point back to an angle. So that key is your number one buddy for the whole time you do this. Some examples…

Regular ole point, no conversion.

Click and pull – creates even ‘arms.’ Use this to start all your curves.

Click and pull. Release. Hold down Apple key (to make the white arrow) and pull one arm. Makes uneven ‘arms.’

Click and pull. Release. DON’T hold down Apple key and pull one arm. Makes uneven ‘arms’ with a corner between em.

It’s complicated, I know — it’s still hard for me, too, and I’ve been doing it for 7 years. It really takes some savvy and only comes with practice. Go around the whole of your path, adjusting point placements, pulling curves, making adjustments to make the path exactly match the outline of your image. You’ll also occasionally have to add more anchor points to your path and that’s where “Add Anchor Point” comes in. Select that tool, drop an anchor point or two wherever you need em in your path, then go back to the “Convert Anchor Point” tool and get your finger back on the Apple key. (Or Function key, or whatever it is on the PC.) Similarly, you may need to remove an anchor point here and there, so use your “Subtract Anchor Point” tool for that. Here’s some closeups of the path getting smoothed and adjusted…

In this shot, the corner to the right of the index finger is being created. (Where the finger overlaps the neck of the guitar.) I’ve pulled the point out and matched the curve of the finger, disregarding what’s happening at the neck of the guitar. (Note that the path dips significantly into the neck of the guitar.) After that, I let go of the point, then grabbed the right ‘arm’ (this breaks the point into a corner, remember) and pulled it out to match the neck of the guitar. (That step not pictured.) Two steps, two curves (in this case a curve and a straight line), and you’ll do it a LOT.

In this shot, you see that the corner from the above pic is finished, but the main thing I wanted to show is how many points I’ve added to get the detail around the lower right tuning knob on the guitar’s head. Look at it compared to the lower middle and lower left ones. This takes tons of practice, patience, and hard work.

Things to keep in mind as you do this painstaking work…

-> The point you’ll be pulling on will interact with both the point before it and the point after it. Try and keep in mind that you don’t have to nail the curve perfectly on this point — you can work it against the others.

-> You can, should, and often will pull one side of the point further than the other to create a short curve on one side and a long one on the other. (See examples above, under “Convert Anchor Point” tool.)

-> Sometimes you need to make a shitload of curves and corners to get a good path. (See the tuning knob image.)

-> IMPORTANT! Always make sure your path is running juuuuust a hair INSIDE the actual edge of the image. If your path runs at all outside the edge, you’ll get an icky halo.

When all this is done, the path looks thusly…

The path is smooth, clean, and runs just a hair inside the actual border of the subject. As you can see, I had to fake it under his ass and around his right side, your left. Also, on the hair, I generally followed the shape of his do, which we’ll go into and fix in step 4, along with fixing that fucked up, foreshortened blur on the shoes.

In preparation, zoom in on the head and start pulling points away from all the little errant bits of hair, leaving big blocks. Thusly…

OK, now for the big knockout, which you have to do before fixing the hair and the shoe blur. So go to your paths palette and drag your new path down to the little dashed circle at the bottom of the palette.

When you do so, your screen will make the most beautiful selection you’ve ever seen…

BAM! You’re stoked, right? OK. Now the single move which will separate YOUR clipped image from everyone else’s. With the selection active, go to the top of your screen, under “Select,” and choose “Feather.” In the dialogue box which comes up, you can choose anything from 0.2 px to like a thousand px. What looks best depends on the resolution of your piece. Lo-rez stuff, 72, you won’t go further than 0.2/0.3 px feather. Hi-rez stuff, well you may have to play with it. I don’t go much further than 1.5 px feather on hi-rez stuff, but it’s just about what looks best.

And now that it’s feathered, you’ll FINALLY get to see some fucking payoff for all your hard work. In your layers palette, duplicate your background layer and turn the original background layer off, leaving only “Background copy.” Like so…

Leaving…

Then click the layer mask button at the bottom of your “Layers” palette, here…

CHECK!

Zoom in on that fucker, I think you’ll be pretty pleased with yourself. Usually, at this point, I like to drop both a solid black and a solid white layer behind the clipped image, and alternate between them, just so I can see if there’s any halo’ing going on, in which case I have to undo the last few steps and go back and adjust the path accordingly.

STEP 4

Now that all the hard work’s done, it’s just about the little details, that damn foot blur and the errant hairs. Foot blur’s easiest, so we’ll hit that first. Using your polygonal lasso tool, make a general selection around each foot. Be as sloppy as you want around the vacant space, but play it tight around the shoe and/or sock…

Feather your selection again. MAKE SURE YOU HAVE THE CLIPPED LAYER, AND NOT THE LAYER MASK, SELECTED. Then hit the “Gaussian Blur” filter. (“Filter > Blur > Gaussian Blur.”) I hit the shoes with a 2.0 px gaus blur, and it fixed it up nicely.

Basically, all this does is helps decrease the look of a solid(ish) clip on a blurred object.

And finally, the hair. Since you’ve already created a layer mask around the subject, you’re ahead. CLICK ON THE MASK, NOT THE LAYER. Here…

Anywhere you paint with black on a mask “erases” the associated picture. Anywhere you paint with white on a mask “brings back” the associated picture. (This is why masks are better than the “Eraser” tool, btw.) So get yourself a nice, little brush with about an 80% / 90% softness to it, choose black as your foreground color and get to it. All you’re doing is slowly and carefully pulling the background out and leaving those frustrating little tendrils of hair. You’ll actually do a LOT of fakery here, because, as you can see, when you stick exactly to what’s there, it appears out of place. DON’T FORGET TO BLUR IT A BIT WHEN YOU’RE DONE. Same as with the shoes, it just helps make it look more real.

AND VOILA!

Next lesson — putting your subject into another image and making that look real, too.

IronLung out.

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