Abrupt Color Changes

[sallybode]

The new Image Adjustment Lab is a powerful tool. The masking here was done with the wand and brush selection tool.

I did a lot of refinement along the edges of the rope with the clone tool.


I usually put the original on the left, however, the natural color of the rope here seems so much like it should have been the original. The one on the right is really the original. Honest.

[cimbian]

That looks like a lot of work... How long did it take?

[sallybode]

It required making two masks, one for the blue legs of the saw horse and its top, the other for the rope.

Because I wanted as few errors in making the masks, I used the path tool, then converted the path to selection and made a clip mask. This gives you a mask you can edit with black or white or shades of gray.

I did the same thing with the rope.

Then I entered the Image Adjustment Lab and changed the hues on both the legs and the rope. The rope was more difficult but the adjustment was made at one shot for both.

Then it was just a matter of touching up a few edges that didn't look quite right on the rope, this was done with the clone tool and the smear tool. And I was done.

Took about 45 minutes all together.

[Sark]

It's interesting you've posted this excercise Sally. I've just recieved Knockout 2 this morning. Haven't been able to give it a go yet, but it will be interesting to see if it is more efficient than the method you describe, which is basically how I've been working in Photoshop.

Photoshops Extract tool is very poor and no quicker than manually tracing and editing the mask. Hopefully Knockout will be particularly good with more difficult subjects, like hair etc. When I get some time I will give it a thorough test.

Sark

[sallybode]

This picture is bigger than what usually gets posted here so I zipped it.

You may wish to do an actual comparison, Sark, so I am posting the picture I used, but zipped.

[Sark]

Hi Sally.

Will give it a go. Already I suspect it will be very easy. Only had a quick play with Knockout, but I'm already very impressed. The Dragonfly below took minutes (The top is original). It's on hair that it really shines. Below is a link to a .psd file that shows one of the included samples after I extracted and replaced it's background colour. You make two selections, one which shows what you want to keep in the foreground and another that you want removed from the background. The .psd shows how crudely I made these extractions (bottom layer) yet it still retained the fine detail in the hair. And again it took minutes.

http://www.yousendit.com/transfer.ph...8DFC976334FBE8

Sark