Question on Bluescreening in Photoshop

I read the tutorial about bluescreening in photoshop and tried it but it doesnt work. how exactly do u get rid of the blue?

any help would be nice
thanx

 

Don't bluescreen in photoshop unless you have no other alternative.







-ZZZ

 

i really dont have any other alternative but adobe photoshop

 

The only way I can think of blue screening through PhotoShop is using the magic wand tool and selecting the blue (with a somewhat mid-ranged sensitivity, depending on the lighting), though the results aren't that great. Then duplicate the layer and blur it a little, which should remove some of the roughies in the image. And put all of that under the background layer.


EDIT:
How I would think you would bluescren in Photoshop.
(from top to bottom)

Layer 1: Blue screen image, with blue removed using magic wand
Copy of Layer 1: A slightly gaussin blurred image of above
Background: Your background image

 

I'm pretty sure there's a way to do it without using the magic wand, but I don't know it. I think we need to put out a call to Ryan_W or somebody like that to help us out with this one.







-ZZZ

 

I hate that.

 

Better than the magic wand is the Color Range selection tool. Go to Select Menu > Color Range. Set the Fuzziness to 0 and then Shift-click and drag over the color you want to select (blue). Drag over the blue areas until most of them are selected in the preview window. Then turn up the fuzziness just enough to get rid of any stray pixels. This is definitely a better way to do it. But if you're compositing video frame by frame, that could be a major pain.

Upon trying this a moment ago, I noticed it leaves a fairly harsh edge and a little blue leftover. You'll probably want to expand and feather the selection a few pixels.

Oh yeah, and there's a good Color Range tutorial on DVGarage about halfway down the page.

 

I agree, color range would be the best way to go.

Also, if you're an advanced enough photoshop user, you could use an alpha channel to create a matte that way.

If you're willing to spend the money, dvGarage has a collection of video tutorials that explain this method quite well.

 

Thanks
The way of color range really worked good for me. I'll do it that way.

 

Yeah, I didn't think of that. But you're right. The blue channel would already give you a pretty good mask. Then with some tweaking it would probably be an even better cutout. But it would probably be a little more work.

 

I still have one more question.
how do u feather it or fuzz it so the harsh blue pixels remaining arent noticeable really?

 

Select > Modify > Expand to make the selection bigger (to include the blue pixels)
Select > Feather to blur the selection. Use a small number or the edge will be too soft.

 

Actually, use Photoshop's extract tool. It's the best way to do bluescreening in Photoshop. It's inter Layer>Extract.

All you do is draw a rough outline around your actor with the brush tool in the Extract control panel. Then you fill him in with the Paint bucket. Hit preview, and volia! However, for best use, read on how to use it in the manual.

If you are bluescreening a filmstrip however, I would use the color range option.