Erasing background behind hair

[RJ Scott Author]

Hi guys. I'm trialling the software as an option instead of photoshop. One of the things I need to do is *cut* out a model from the background without losing stubble or hair texture edge.

 

Does anyone have any ideas of the best way to do this? In photoshop I would use *erase background* and mess about with the options to keep the hair intact.

 

Attached is an example of the kind of image that I need to *cut* the guy from.

 

Many thanks in advance. RJ 

[MEB]

Hi RJ Scott Author,

Welcome to Affinity Forums

The image you have posted is not particularly easy because of the similar tones in the darker areas but have you tried the Refine Selection feature in Affinity Photo? Check this video for details: Refining Selections. You can output the result as a mask and refine it manually if needed to.

[Callum]

Hi RJ Scott Author!

 

Welcome to the forums

 

I would use the Selection Brush along with the Refine selection feature to mask out the back ground below you can find a few tutorials explaining these tools along with a version I did myself very quickly. I'm sure if you took your time you could make it look much better!

 

https://vimeo.com/130975378

 

https://vimeo.com/130974710

 

https://vimeo.com/130972598

 

C

 

[firstdefence]

Dark hair on a dark background... Wow! how to make it hard for yourself lol!

 

I think its a, try your best and then brush hair back in with this one.

 

Ok I had a go and worked out a rough work flow.

 

• make a copy of the image layer and hide/turn off the original image layer by unchecking the box to the layers right.
• Rasterise the copy image.
• Create a Pixel layer, later you can drop the opacity of this layer to about 60-70% opacity to give the hair a translucent look.
• On the pixel layer get a suitable brush and try to copy where the hair falls, this will make the hair you create look a more natural, you can lighten the tips of the hair later to mimic back lighting if thats needed. alternate between a 2px and 3px brush size.
• TIP: drop the opacity of the copied image that you rasterised to about 70% to get a better idea of where you are painting hair and how it looks.
• When you think you have created enough hair you can go back to the rasterised image layer and start making a selection to delete. Small steps are better here even single clicks when you are near the hair, On the image I copied from here I used a 30px brush and went back and forth between adding and subtracting until I was happy with the selection, play about with the refine option using a bit of feathering and possibly some minus Ramp. I then deleted the selected area.
• You can now go back to the pixel layer and try and get the hairs looking more natural by doing, dodging, burning and adding transparency etc.

[firstdefence]

I added the hair with a mouse, if you have a tablet and pen it would probably be much faster and neater. generally I'd cut the hair back sharper with less feathering to prevent that fuzzing of the hair below the brush work.

 

 

demo file.afphoto

[RJ Scott Author]

Thank you so much guys for the responses... this alone makes me think Affinity is a good option for me  I love an active forum. 

 

I will try everything you said and report back. 

 

Luckily it isn't always something this dark as a background that I am working with. 

 

RJ X