Wednesday, May 14, 2008

Combined use of Clipping Path and Photoshop Masking.

It was a little bit confusing. One holly day I tried to edit my own pictures so that I can show them to my friends. All I wanted to do was cutting my pictures from their original background in order to put them in another suitable background. There are so many different ways of background removing (from a picture or image) avail able in adobe Photoshop. Among them image masking or Photoshop masking and clipping path are the two commonly used method. My confusion was which technique I should apply.

Firstly I started with layer masking. It is a great and easy technique. But the problem I faced was with the edges. I could not cut the edges clearly. Then I tried with clipping path technique. Man! It is tough to manage pen tool. It requires lot of practice. So I tried with auto path. But here I had to face difficulties with my hair (On the picture off course). Next I tried with channel masking. Problem again! This technique is taking much longer time to adjust the levels or Curves.

What to do now? Probably people take advices in this kind of situations. I also did that. I talked with one of my colleague who works as a graphic designer (I am with business development team) in Color Experts International. It is a low-cost clipping path and image masking service provider. He showed me a method of using clipping path and channel masking together. He did this within 3 minutes. I was stunned. However I have learned that technique. Are you also interested to learn it? Keep an eye on the net. I will post it as a tutorial soon. Thank you every body.

Dewan Shuvo
Chief Operating Officer
Color Experts International.