How do I extract my subject?
image extraction
James Hetzler
Last Update há 10 meses
If you have your camera set up to capture images in RAW then you will first need to process your image. There are many RAW processors and most work very similarly – we use Lightroom. RAW images contain a lot more information than a jpeg and give you much more flexibility if you decide to brighten, darken, or adjust colors. Do any adjusting necessary in your RAW processing software then export to Photoshop. We typically export our adjusted files as 300 dpi jpegs at whatever size the client has ordered.
Once in Photoshop we do any normal retouching required (blemish removal, teeth whitening) before extracting.
There are many different ways you can extract a subject in Photoshop. However, the entire purpose of photographing on a green screen background is so that the extraction is fast and easy. We use our Extraction Action and it only takes a few seconds for our image to be ready to composite. There are also services on the internet that you can pay to have extractions done for you — however that typically takes a day or so to get the extraction back… and just because someone else is doing the work does not mean the extraction will be high quality!
A good extraction will typically be created with a mask. A mask is nondestructive way of erasing and enables you to add or subtract from the original image at any moment. For example, if you extract someone and then add the extraction to a scene, you may realize that you accidentally removed something vital – such as a finger or part of a shoe. If the extraction was created with a mask you will be able to easily add the missing element back.
After our subject is extracted, we often add an additional layer of enhancement to our subjects that gives them a bit more pop. We call it our Intensify Action. Playing this action creates two additional layers that increases the detail and depth. We use the depth layer to enhance any edge light that we really want to pop and often darken down areas that we don’t want to be distracting.
Once our image is extracted and all enhancements finished we often have multiple layers that make up the finished extraction. To keep things simple we prefer to group all the layers into a single folder to make it a nice neat package in Photoshop. We have actually programmed our Extraction Action to group the important layers automatically into a folder. We then save the extraction as a .psd in the client’s file.
Check out How To Green Screen Page!