Black background around portrait but hair looks funny

[prettywoman Profile]

Hi

I am doing a portrait shot and put a black background in, unfortunately I just can't get the black to sit perfectly around the hair of the subject it is standing out and is obvious I have put a black background in. How do I blend the hair or put the background in better to look natural?? Hope I have explained that ok ?

[eadams Profile]

I love the area selecting capabilities of SPE and often prefer to use SPE rather than Photoshop in many instances to select an area. Having said that, replacing a background with one that doesn't match the lighting of the original background is always a tricky proposition because obvious fringing is unavoidable.

Have you tried applying a darkening filter to the subject selection and erasing it everywhere except on the hair edges?

[prettywoman Profile]

Hi
Thank you for getting back to me, this there anyone in particular? Do you know the name of it?

Many thanks

[eadams Profile]

Are you asking for a recommendation for a particular effect? I did some experimenting with a photo of mine, and couldn't get a satisfactory result when turning a light background to black. So I can't really recommend anything. I guess the best way to obtain a portrait against a black background is to photograph the subject against a black background.

I would be very interested in seeing tips from others.

[admin]

As Eadams says, replacing background can be very difficult. One tip you might not be aware of is the "Remove Halo" button in the composite tool (The third button in the underlay layer controls, it looks like a fuzzy red blob, half of which has a halo). Pressing it will attempt to remove a halo from around a subject when using an underlay to replace the background. The other tip I'd give is practice using the Find Soft Edge brush and learn how to effectively use the shift key to remove colors from difficult areas.

Let me know if you'd like more information.

Kind regards

Tony