Problems with "white background" technique

seeker

So I did a high-key photo shoot a week or so ago with a 1-year old against a white background. I botched the setup of the background lights; not too bad, but just bad enough that I can see a muddy sort of "haze" across the top of the pictures. I didn't see this on my DSLR's LCD display, which is why I didn't know it was there.

I used Andy's terrific A Little White Background technique to remove this "haze" from the background.

The problem I have is that I can now see this "haze" around the edge of the boy's hairline.

This may be difficult to see in the attached photos without saving the file and zooming in. My concern is that this "haze" will show up on a large print.

Before fix ...



After fix (haze still present around hairline) ...



Any thoughts on how to clean this issue with the hairline up?

Thanks!

Brian

gmachen

Try doing your "A Little White Background technique" more aggressively on a Levels adjustment layer, then in Layer Options do a Blend-if, underlying layer, since the hair and flesh basically are red, exclude ranges light in the red under the red popup menu (pull in the slider from the red side), or probably better yet, exclude ranges dark in the green under the green popup menu (pull in the slider from the dark side). Make sure to option/alt-drag the slider after the adjustment to separate it into two so as to feather the effect.

seeker

gmachen wrote:

Try doing your "A Little White Background technique" more aggressively on a Levels adjustment layer, then in Layer Options do a Blend-if, underlying layer, since the hair and flesh basically are red, exclude ranges light in the red under the red popup menu (pull in the slider from the red side), or probably better yet, exclude ranges dark in the green under the green popup menu (pull in the slider from the dark side). Make sure to option/alt-drag the slider after the adjustment to separate it into two so as to feather the effect.

I really have no idea what you just said

What is a "blend-if" option?

Brian

pyrtek

seeker wrote:

I really have no idea what you just said

What is a "blend-if" option?

This might help:

http://ronbigelow.com/articles/bend-if/blend-if.htm

seeker

gmachen wrote:

Try doing your "A Little White Background technique" more aggressively on a Levels adjustment layer, then in Layer Options do a Blend-if, underlying layer, since the hair and flesh basically are red, exclude ranges light in the red under the red popup menu (pull in the slider from the red side), or probably better yet, exclude ranges dark in the green under the green popup menu (pull in the slider from the dark side). Make sure to option/alt-drag the slider after the adjustment to separate it into two so as to feather the effect.

OK, so here are the steps I went through. I am new to this, and am not sure if I did everything correctly, although I did see *some* improvement.

1) Did the "Little White Background" technique, and pulled the right slider waaaay to the left.
2) Created a new background layer that was all white (I did this because when I applied the Blend-If feature, it left holes in the photo).
3) Double clicked on the middle layer (which has the picture of the boy on it)
4) Went into Blend-If, set it to "red" and pulled the right slider as far left as I could until I started to see the boy's face start to "break up".

I can definitely see that some of that reddish-haze at the edge of the hair has gone, but it is not entirely gone.

Here is the new photo:



- Brian

gmachen

1) Don't need to pull the slider "waaay" over; just enough to encroach a little on the edge of the boy, to make sure you get all the backgound out. Click "Preview" to gauge it visually in real time.
2) Don't need to create the new white background layer - get rid of it!
3) Access the layer options for the Levels adjustment layer, not for the boy's layer. The Levels layer is the one you want partially to exclude with the Blend-if sliders.
4) Make sure you use the "Underlying Layer" sliders, because that's the layer you want to sample where red is light (or, as I said, likely better yet, where green is dark - look in the individual channels to judge yourself; where blue is dark also very well could be best) in order to exclude the Levels layer in those areas. Now go to town on the sliders.

When you get it like you want, it'll have a harsh edge; don't forget to option/alt-drag the slider to split it in order to finesse a smooth feather.

seeker

gmachen wrote:

1) Don't need to pull the slider "waaay" over; just enough to encroach a little on the edge of the boy, to make sure you get all the backgound out. Click "Preview" to gauge it visually in real time.
2) Don't need to create the new white background layer - get rid of it!
3) Access the layer options for the Levels adjustment layer, not for the boy's layer. The Levels layer is the one you want partially to exclude with the Blend-if sliders.
4) Make sure you use the "Underlying Layer" sliders, because that's the layer you want to sample where red is light (or, as I said, likely better yet, where green is dark - look in the individual channels to judge yourself; where blue is dark also very well could be best) in order to exclude the Levels layer in those areas. Now go to town on the sliders.

When you get it like you want, it'll have a harsh edge; don't forget to option/alt-drag the slider to split it in order to finesse a smooth feather.

Well, I don't know what to say, but I cannot get a result that looks as good as what I have above using the specific technique you describe above. I still have the reddish-blueish "hazing" around the hairline. I tried both the blue and green

Brian

gmachen

seeker wrote:

I tried both the blue and green

Make sure you got my distinction between:
- the red (where the red parts of the image are light - pull-in the light-red-side slider)
- the green/blue (where the green/blue parts of the image are are dark - pull-in the dark-green/blue-side slider)