3D offset effect

This tutorial is based on this image:

Step 1. Start with an image.

I already clipped the background out of the image so the effect will only apply to the main image.

Go to the Channels Palette and select the channel that isn’t too dark or too bright – I would suggest a channel with medium contrast. Press CTRL (win)/CMD (mac) while clicking on the chosen channel.

This will create a selection. Make sure the image is selected – that is, shading on our main subject is selected and not the background. You can Invert a selection by pressing CTRL(win)/CMD(mac) + SHIFT + I or Go to SELECT>INVERSE.

Step 2. Adding the Colors

While the selection is still on, go to the Layers Palette and Create a New Layer.

Fill the selection with R:0 G:255 B:0.

Create another layer and fill the selection with R:255 G:0 B:255 which is a hot pink.

Step 3. Offsetting the Layers

Deselect the image – Ctrl(win)/CMD(mac) + D.

Move the pink layer 8 arrow key hits to the LEFT. Then move the green layer 8 arrow key hits to the RIGHT.

Step 4. Masking

Select the green layer and click Create Vector Mask at the bottom of the Layers Palette.

Choose the Gradient (G) tool while the vector mask is selected in the layer, swipe it horizontally to the right so the green will show only on the right of the image.

Repeat the same steps above with the Pink layer but when creating a gradient vector mask you swipe the gradient the opposite direction so it will show pink on the left side of our image.

Once done, change the Blending Mode to Overlay on both layers.

Step 5. Refining

You can finish the whole image by using the Eraser (E) Tool or the Brush (B) tool to fine tune (add or delete) parts of the Vector Gradient Mask to show more of the picture.

I would suggest a soft brush (Hardness:0) that is at least 80 pixels in diameter.

Masking and Extracting Hair

One of the most frustrating challenges facing choppers is the extracting of hair. The idea of spending more time than needed just to mask hair turns everyone off into chopping. Worry no more. Here’s a simple and fast technique to extract hair.

We’ll use the image hairtest.jpg below.

PREPARATION.

Open the image then select the Lasso Tool (Press L).

Roughly select the edge of the hair as shown below:

(Win: CTRL / Mac: CMD)

Press CTRL-J to copy our selection to a new layer (shown below).

EXTRACTING BY CHANNEL ADJUSTMENTS.

Go to the Channels Pallette. (Windows>Channels)
Select which of the individual channels (R, G, or B) has more contrast. In this case, we will select the Red (R) channel by clicking on it.

Then we will copy the Red channel to work on.

1. Select the Red Channel.

2. Drag it to the Create New Channel icon below the palette.

1. A copy of the red channel will appear in the Channels Palette.

2. Open the LEVELS Adjustment by pressing CTRL-L or go to IMAGE>ADJUSTMENTS>LEVELS.

3. You can copy the setting shown above or punch in these numbers – 51 / 1.00 / 1.43. What we are trying to do is to increase the contrast in the image more so that the background will turn white and the hair will turn black giving us an image that’s easy to extract.

4. Press OK to confirm settings.

To elaborate on the Level settings, here’s a short explanation.

1. Sets the White Point of an image. Meaning this changes the highlights and the light portions of the image. If you move this inwards (towards the middle) it will increase the brightness of the light parts of our image.

2. Sets the Black Point of our image. Moving this towards the middle will increase the darkness of the dark parts of our image.

3. The middle sets any tone in between the two.

What I did first was turn the White Point knob inwards (to turn the light portions really light – almost white) until I get a contrast that won’t make the hair look pixelated or broken up. If I notice the hair starts getting degenerated I either move it back to the right and stop where the contrast looks better. At this point the hair looks gray.

Turn the Black Point inwards and watch as the hair turns dark. Stop when it shows a nice contrast of dark hair and white background.

The try and adjust the Grey Point to fine tune the contrast even more.

Here’s the image we have with the following setting:

Black Point: 51

Grey Point: 1.00

White Point: 1.43

CLEANING UP.

As you can see there’s still shades of gray where the background used to be. For that we’ll just manually erase it.

Select Eraser Tool (Press E).

Set the brush size to around 35-40 pixels. Hardness set to 0%.

Start at the edge farthest from the hair and slowly erase the gray tone left by the background until you have something similar to the image below.

FINISHING THE EXTRACTION.

In the Channels Palette, click on RGB (or Press CTRL ~)to go back to our original image.
Select the Pen Tool (Press P) and draw a path to the rest of our image excluded when we selected the edge of the hair in the beginning of this tutorial.

Go back to Channels, hold CTRL then click on the Red copy Channel to make it into a selection.

Notice it selected the background instead of the hair. We have to invert the selection so press CTRL-SHIFT-I. Now our hair is selected.

Besides this selection we are going to add another seleciton from the path we created.

Go to the Paths Palette.

Press hold CTRL-SHIFT and click on our Work Path to not only turn this to a selection but add it to our current one created from the channels.

Note when we hold control/shift and hover our cursor over the path it shows a + selection icon.

Go to the Layers Palette and turn on and select the layer that says Background as shown below.

Press CTRL-J to copy the selection to a new layer. Turn off visibility on the Background layer to see the results.

To test what we did I would create a new layer over the Background layer and fill it with color – if you’re curious.