Color Masks

[Croasdail]

Many years ago I used to work for a company called Micrografx the made one of the first highend image \ raster editing packages called "PricturePerfect". It had the functionality that you could create masks by defining a color - just like green screening. Does PSE have that capability? and I would assume CS2 does - but could someone confirm that for me before I upgrade if necessary... thanks.

[Rick Baker]

If you mean selecting all the pixels in an image of one color, yes. Magic wand and then select similar(to select all pixels of that color in the image) and then select inverse(to select all but those colors). If you want to select and mask a range of greens, you would select the color and adjust the tolerance of the magic wand to select the color and a number of similar colors and then choose select similar to select all those color in the whole image then select inverse to mask those colors. There maybe other ways to do this.

I have never used Photoshop Elements, so I don't know that much about it, but I am pretty sure you can do that with Elements. Magic wand, select similar and select inverse have been around for awhile.

[Mernya]

There is also a Select Color Range in Photoshop.

[Rick Baker]

Also, I just looked in the "Select" menu of Photoshop CS2 and found a feature I wasn't aware of. It's called "Color Range" and works by you selecting a color and adjusting the "fuzziness", basically the threshold of colors similar to the one your selected. That way you can select a range of similar colors and then invert selection to make a mask.

[Rick Baker]

There is also a Select Color Range in Photoshop.

Just found that out ; I don't know how long it has been around, but I just noticed it when looking to see if there was some other way to do it.

[Mernya]

Select Color Range has been around at least since Version 4.

[Rick Baker]

Select Color Range has been around at least since Version 4.


hmm... is it pretty undocumented? I have ready many books on Photoshop and I really don't recall it.

strange

[gmitchel]

hmm... is it pretty undocumented? I have ready many books on Photoshop and I really don't recall it.

strange

You might have inadvertently missed it. ;)

I think most good books on PS mention the Color Range command. I'm quite sure Barry Haynes does. Fraser and Blatner do, I believe. Deke McClelland, too. Etc. Scott Kelby talks about it a lot for changing colors for advertising, etc. His example is usually a model where the dress changes color from a tangerine orange to a green by selecting with Color Range and then using the selection as a layer mask for a Hue/Saturation adjustment layer.

Cheers,

Mitch

[Rick Baker]

You might have inadvertently missed it. ;)

I think most good books on PS mention the Color Range command. I'm quite sure Barry Haynes does. Fraser and Blatner do, I believe. Deke McClelland, too. Etc. Scott Kelby talks about it a lot for changing colors for advertising, etc. His example is usually a model where the dress changes color from a tangerine orange to a green by selecting with Color Range and then using the selection as a layer mask for a Hue/Saturation adjustment layer.

Cheers,

Mitch


hmmm.. I have been using Photoshop a lot for awhile and I have read many books on it, though it has been awhile since I have read a new one.

weird