Photoshop's Refine Edge Tool for better selections

Some selections are much more difficult than others. To make a laborious selection involving texture or around hair consider using the Refine Edge brush tool.

Start by making a rough selection with any of the selection tools.
Then go to Select > Refine Edge. Here you will see the Refine Edge brush as shown on the left.
The refine edge tool will improve the quality of your selection and allow you to extract objects to make your final results look much more realistic.
Using the Refine Edge brush carefully brush around the edge of your selection keeping the tiny cross-hair in the middle of the brush off the subject. Photoshop will use this information to fine tune where the edges should be.
On my example on the left I used the lasso tool to make a selection around my subject then deleted the background. The scenic layer below shows through but the edges are harsh and the image looks obviously copied and pasted.
I included the Refine Edge brush on the image on the right to improve my selection before deleting the original background. I was able to brush over soft areas like the hair to make a much better selection. The results are a much more realistic looking scene.

With a little experimenting with the tool you'll get a near perfect selection.

Want to see how I did this? Take a look at the video link below.

http://screencast.com/t/0SyHXNOtXGE

Free Gift Tags and custom Christmas cards

Just in time for the Holidays!

Wanted to share a previous post that might be just what you need. Enjoy!
If you want to print out photos to include in your holiday mailings, how about adding a really festive border first?
HP Creative Studio has numerous frames that you can upload and drop a photo into. There's no need to even create an account. Just upload some photos and drag and drop them into the frame of your choice. Then, select print and print it out on some nice photo paper.What about creating your own custom greeting cards? Yup, you can do that too!HP Creative Studio allowed me to add some custom text both inside and out and allowed me to print my card directly to my printer.

How about custom gift tags? They even have a template that allows you to drop your own photo into. And the best part of course....it's all FREE.

How neat is that!?Click on the link below to enter their site.
HP Creative Studio

Happy Holidays!

Leona :-)

Photoshop CS6 new color adjustment layer

There's a new adjustment layer in Photoshop. It's called the color lookup adjustment.
Just go to the adjustment layer icon in the layers palette, and select the new color lookup adjustment. Like other adjustment layers, the beauty of this tool is that it doesn't harm any pixels and, you can always go back and edit, adjust, change the opacity of the effect, or delete the adjustment layer.
The color lookup adjustment layer is a combination of adjustments that remaps all of the colors into a new set of colors. These colors can give your photo a unique feel.
You'll find several special effects to choose from. In my example I'm using the the Crisp Warm look found in the 3DLUT (Look Up Table) drop-down menu.  Depending on the feel you want, try each special effect out.
If there aren't enough options here, try the Abstract and Device Link effects too.
Again, since you’re using an adjustment layer, the change you apply to the image isn't permanent, which means you can try as many lookup tables as you want, compare the results and settle on the one you like best.
In my example below, I used the Crisp Warm effect but took the opacity back to 63% to get my photo looking just right.
You'll also notice that it comes with its own mask. Try applying a special effect and mask part of the image to the original state. You'll only be limited by your imagination.

*The Mac system comes with an additional row of abstract effects not found on Windows. 
This photo I took was of my husband's farmstead in NW Kansas. Copies of this and other of my photographs can be found at http://tinyurl.com/8gzenmg