Learning Some More Advanced Techniques In Photoshop>>>>>>>>

Since the release of Photoshop CS5, I've really been trying to take the time to do some honest-to-goodness tutorial training. Anything I can get my hands on, from Youtube vids to training DVDs from the National Association of Photoshop Professionals (I'm a member of NAPP).

After my latest training session, I created the below image from two different photos I took while in New York recently. The trick to this image is being able to create a good selection - cleanly pulling the elements you want from one photograph out, and pasting them into a 2nd photo as a layer. Creating a good selection really can be difficult. But I think I've mastered some techniques which will make the process much easier.

How'd I do?

Looks good to me well done nice job..

TTk wrote in post #10249083
Looks good to me well done nice job..

Thank you sir!

Greetings Daytona,

I am no PS expert, but the end result looks awesome and very clean. Way to go sir.

I need to spend more time learning PS.

Peace,
Yanis

Yanis wrote in post #10251160
Greetings Daytona,

I am no PS expert, but the end result looks awesome and very clean. Way to go sir.

I need to spend more time learning PS.

Peace,
Yanis

Most kind of you to say Yanis.

Very well done i must say Makes my efforts look like the work of a five year old

It looks like you did a good job on the isolation.

The body of the statue is very well done. The only nitpick I would have would be the "windows" of the torch. You can see the sky through the gaps.

rcf22 wrote in post #10262906
The body of the statue is very well done. The only nitpick I would have would be the "windows" of the torch. You can see the sky through the gaps.

Wow - amazing eyes. I caught it after the fact, but doubted anyone else would be able to catch it.

Another experiment:

I've heard that CS5 has made big strides in the selection tools, but you make it sound like it's still very hard to do? These look pretty nice. How long did each one take?

canonloader wrote in post #10275915
I've heard that CS5 has made big strides in the selection tools, but you make it sound like it's still very hard to do? These look pretty nice. How long did each one take?

Honestly, each one took less than a half an hour. About 20 minutes for the first....a little longer for the second. Prior to C55, I wouldn't have even attempted either of these photos.

The isolation work is solid! Sounds like the pen tool os not the tool of choice for accurate isolations in CS5?

apixelintime wrote in post #10282535
The isolation work is solid! Sounds like the pen tool os not the tool of choice for accurate isolations in CS5?

I think the tool of choice will ultimately depend on the type of selection you're doing. For me, it only took about 10 minutes using the magnetic lasso and the selection correction tool to make the selection. From there, it was about 5 minutes or so playing with the new edge refinement tool. Once you've happy with the selection, then it's just a matter of placing it into position and scaling it.

Did you use the color selection tools? I only have CS3 but have heard that the new selection tools are so good cause you can now select by color, which would be so much better than just finding an edge in the old way. Your watch and the liberty are fairly straight edges, what about really complex edges like a treeline or bird feathers?