422
T
HE BACKGROUND ERASER IS A
fantastic tool for removing dull backdrops
from photographs. In Chapter 8 we looked at its
use for removing the white background behind
fuzzy hair; here, we’ll show how it can be used
effectively to take out a dull sky and replace it
with a more interesting one.
Although it’s undeniably powerful, the
Background Eraser isn’t perfect. Here are a few
tips to help you to get the best out of it.
You’ll find the Background Eraser hidden
beneath the Eraser tool in the Toolbar – or
press
Se repeatedly to access it.
4
When we place a new background in the composition,
we can see a couple of mistakes. The tool has erased the
clock face, for instance, and the building lower right is partly
transparent. Switch to the History Brush (y) and, with a hard-
edged brush, paint over these areas: the saved History data
will be used to paint the elements back in.
1
There are two steps you should always take before
beginning to use the Background Eraser. First, double
click the Background layer in the Layers panel to turn it into
a regular layer; then open the History panel, and click next to
the Make Layer step to pin the History at that point.
Background Eraser tricks
14
Advanced techniques
SHORTCUTS
MAC WIN BOTH
423
HOT TIP
Setting the History
position right at
the beginning is
the key to working
effectively with
the Background
Eraser. But it’s
important to
do this after the
background has
been turned into
a regular layer:
otherwise, when
you try to use the
History brush later,
you’ll be told that
the corresponding
layer no longer
exists in the
document.
5
On close inspection, we can see some color fringing in
the original photograph (left). This is caused by the high
contrast between the dark branches and the bright sky. Lock
the transparency of the original layer, and use a soft brush set
to Color mode to paint the fringes in a color sampled from
elsewhere in the branches.
6
As a final step, we can easily remove any stray pixels
of the original sky that may remain. C L click
on the layer’s thumbnail to load it as a selection, then use
CSi LSi to inverse the selection. Pressing
B now will remove those single-pixel aberrations (but
make sure it doesn’t take out twigs as well).
2
We can now go ahead and use the tool to erase all the
sky. I recommend always setting the tool to Sample
Once, so we don’t inadvertently sample foreground colors; and
set the mode to Discontiguous, so it will look (and erase) inside
bounded areas such as the tree branches.
3
It may look as if the tool has worked perfectly when
viewed against the checkerboard background, but this
isn’t always the case. Adding a new background in a strong
color shows us all the places where the sky has not been
removed: we can continue with the tool to erase them.
How to Cheat in Photoshop CC
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