Advanced Subject Relocation, Vector Mask and Clone Stamp
Written by Amatocianmonk 2008-05-27 This tutorial is going to discuss some more advanced methods for moving a subject into a new location. Dont forget to read the other tutorials on this subject:
The main topics covered in this tutorial are the use of the clone stamp tool and the use of a vector mask in order to blend your subject into the scene more realistically. Here is the before and after for this tutorial.
Shall we get started?
In this tutorial, i am not going to cut out my subject the same way that i did in the previous tutorials. The lasso tool is good for beginners, but it does not achieve perfect results. It give choppy edges and sharp corners. A better alternative is to use the Pen tool to outline our subject. Create a new Layer (Ctrl + Shift + N). Select your pen tool and zoom in on your subject. Similar to the lasso method, you want to go around your subject in order to cut them out. However, we are not doing the exact same thing. With your pen tool, you can make more rounded lines, which are better for cutting out people. And you basically want to make a shape with the pen tool that perfectly covers your subject. It is also a good idea to lower the opacity of the layer with the pen tool to about 50%. That way you can see through it and see your work better.
Once you have your subject perfectly covered by the pen tool, right click on the shape layer that you just made and click "Rasterize Layer". Take out your magic wand tool (W) and click somewhere inside your shape. The selection area should now be the exact same shape as what you drew with the pen tool. Which is the exact outline of our subject. For me, it looked like this
Now we need to change to the background layer, while making sure not to loose our selection. Click on the layer that has your subject in it, then hide or delete the shape layer, we dont need it anymore.
With your selection area around your subject, you can either select inverse (Ctrl + Shift + I) and delete everything but your subject, or you can (with the selection around your subject) put the subject in it's own layer (Ctrl + J) and then delete the background. Basically, we want our subject by themselves so we can work with them.
Now slip your new background in behind your subject.
Then work with your picture a bit to make the lighting and colors and everything match up as well as you can.
There, that looks pretty good, but she doesnt actually look like she is there.
We want to create the illusion that she is in the middle of this field of flowers. Today we are going to use a vector mask to do this.
Select your subject layer and add a new vector mask.
The way that the vector mask works is similar to the eraser tool. But much, much better. The best way to explain how you use the vector mask is like this: You are painting in an invisible layer and you only have two colors, black and white. If you have black selected while you paint, any area that you paint over will become invisible in the subject layer. If you have an invisible area and you paint with white over it, it becomes visible again. This is why it is better than the eraser tool. Not only can you clear out an area (erase), but later on, you can come back and specify an area to be un-erased again. It is very useful. And you will understand it more as you use it.
Im going to use this tool to clear out an area of her foot to make a flower look like it is in front of her leg.
I select black as my color and make sure that the vector mask is selected.
Simply paint around the area that you want to clear out and it will be 'erased'.
See how i cleared out a large area? I did this to make sure that i got all of the flower.
Now change your color to white and get a bit smaller brush. Zoom closer in and paint over the areas that you want to 'un-erase'.
See how the flower is not covered up by her leg? That is because i did not paint over that with white. I left it see through.
That is an example of how to use the Vector Mask.
The next thing that we want to talk about in this tutorial is the use of the Clone Stamp Tool (S).
The clone stamp tool basically takes a selected area and uses it as the brush to re-paint it somewhere else. Make sure that you have Clone Stamp Tool selected and not Pattern Stamp Tool. Select your background layer and Alt + Click on the middle of some flower. When you Alt + Click with the Clone Stamp Tool, you are selecting the source to be cloned. Create a new Layer (Ctrl + Shift + N) to paint our new flower in. Simply drag the tool around to paint with it.
Now there is some extra in there besides the flower we want to clone. To get rid of it, you can use the eraser tool, or you can use the better Vector Mask method that we learned about earlier. I would suggest Vector Mask.
I did this with some more flowers.
I also positioned some flowers lying horizontally so that it gives the illusion of her lying on them. Subtle things like that make it jump from being sort-of-realistic to being able to fool anyone.
Just minor things and i ended up with this:
I hope you enjoyed this tutorial and learning about vector masks and the clone stamp tool. Chalfont!
When you Alt + Click with the Clone Stamp Tool, you are selecting the source to be cloned. Create a new Layer (Ctrl + Shift + N) to paint our new flower in. Simply drag the tool around to paint with it.