Replacing background

[RedSnapper]

I am trying to replace the off-white section at the top of the picture with black. V1 did a good  job, The selection tool picked the off-white area very well and the Refine tuned it. I then flooded it with black.  But I wasn't happy where the guys hair against the new background. It didn't look natural when enlarged.  So I tried to do the same in v2 hoping it would do a better job. V2 was awful. It didn't a very poor job of selecting the off-white area. When I hit refine the selection ants disappeared and refine did nothing. Changing the preview did nothing and the brush to refine the edges also disappeared.  Any ideas what I am doing wrong? 

[v_kyr]

Try out the Flood selection Tool with a smaller Tolerance <= 20% on the gray wall area, afterwards adjust & refine what that gives you as selection. - With the Selection Brush tool try out with a "smaller brush width" to make a finer/better selection, then afterwards refine the selection too if needed.

[Ron P.]

It can be tricky to get a good selection. What I would do;

• Enable Snapping for the Selection Brush (Context Toolbar)
• Zoom in close for the hair area, use a smaller brush.

For the Selection REFINE

• Zoomed in close
• Small Brush
• Paint short/small areas
• Use the other Previews (Black and White works good)

There's numerous other techniques that get more involved, like before making your selection, create a high-contrast Grey layer and using it to make your selection.

[RedSnapper]

I don't understand what is happening. Previously there was no brush to do a refine and the various Preview options did nothing. So, this time I set snap to edges on, Clicking refines does lets me refine the edges but when I Apply it highlights areas all over the image. 

[Dan C]

Hi @RedSnapper,

My sincerest apologies for the delayed response, we are exceptionally busy following our V2 launch, many thanks for your continued patience and understanding here.

If you're still experiencing this issue, are you able to provide a copy of the original image/.afphoto file here for me to test further between versions?

Many thanks in advance!

[firstdefence]

@RedSnapper Want to upload the image for us to see what can be done.

[NotMyFault]

In my experience selections works best when applied to a single pixel layer (the active layer in the layer stack). If you have an image layer, you should rasterise it.

If you have other layers like adjustment on top, select the pixel layer in the layer panel first, before staring a selection.

In your screenshot "All Layers" is inactive, which might explain the issues.

Please include the layer panel in screenshots so we can check if any of the possible cases listed above may apply.