Silhouette Layout PT 1 - Creating an Image Mask

This tutorial will teach you to create a layer mask from a photo or image. You will then use the mask to extract your image and as mask to create a silhouette. This is an advanced tutorial and assumes you have a comfortable working knowledge of Photoshop. There are two parts to the tutorial, so on with part one.

Open your photo in PS, make a duplicate and close original. Open your duplicate and double click on the layer as indicated in the photo to promote your background to a layer.

Now crop your image close to it's source. Double click to apply or enter to apply.

Once your image is cropped go to Select, Color Range

From here you want to use the very first eye dropper and use it to select a color from your background. Then slide the fuzziness scale until the image is mostly black and the background is white. Depending on your image you may not acheive perfect results but come as close as you can.

when you've come as close as you can click ok. With your image still selected go to your layers palette and switch to channels. Click the second button to save the selction as a channel. This will create an alpha channel.

You should have something very similiar to this.

Hit Ctrl+D to deselect your image. Click on your alpha layer if you haven't already. Now comes the fun part. Zoom in on your image. Choose a large brush with a crisp edge. Begin painting all of the black areas (the main image area) until all of the image is definate black with no holes or shades of grey. Do all the large areas first and then switch to a smaller brush to fill in the smaller areas.

When you have done the black areas switch your paint color to white and do the outside of the image.

Once you are done painting your image should be crisp and clean like this.

Note: Until you get the hang of this technique you may want to use images that don't have a lot of whispy strands such as free flowing hair.

Now you have a perfect mask. Or at least I hope you do. You have completed Part 1 of this tutorial. You now know how to create images masks from your photos.

To continue on with the Silhouette Layout see Part 2 of this tutorial.

 

Credits: Digital Scrap Kit is That Boy's Got Spunk

by Veronica Spriggs & Michelle Yiap

Tutorial and all contents ©Veronica Spriggs of Digiscrap Boutique this tutorial may not be copied or reproduced for publication on any other web site, group or mailing list. You may print this article for personal use only