My intentions with the Photographer’s Corner is to put up quick little tips & tricks for all things photography. These tips & tricks could be related to camera and gear, photography, Lightroom, Photoshop, Marketing & Sales, etc. If you have any suggestions on what you’d like to see here, feel free to leave a comment and let me know.
Seamless Background Cleanup
The first tip I have for you is a quick way to clean up your backgrounds when working with seamless paper. I don’t use this effect on 100% opacity as it will leave your subject looking like it’s floating. I back mine off to around 60%-80%. (Disclaimer: All my edits are done on a Windows 7 pc running Photoshop CS5 and Lightroom 3. If you are on a MAC, you will need to use the appropriate shortcut keys. I believe on a MAC, the CTRL key would be the Command Key and the Alt key is the Option key)
1. Open your Image in Photoshop
2. Make a selection of your model/subject. I usually use the Quick Selection Tool when I need to do this.
3. Inverse your selection. Ctrl+Shift+I on a pc
4. Now feather your selection. Select>Modify>Feather and choose 1-2 pixels
5. Open a Levels Adjustment Layer. This is under the half black half white circle in your Layers Palette
6. With your Levels Layer Adjustment window open, slide the Highlight bar towards the left just past the black spikes. You will have 3 sliders. The one on the right is for the Highlights, the one in the middle is for Midtones, and the one on the left is for Shadows.
7. That’s basically it. If your shadow is too strong, with your Layer Mask window selected, set your paint brush to white at 50% opacity and paint away on the shadow.
8. Adjust Opacity to your liking.
