# Help with horses head on black background - photoshop



## angelkissingdevil (Apr 12, 2012)

Please  forgive, extreme novice, but was wondering if anyone could help, I've  seen pics of horses heads placed onto a black background without a black  background being used when taking the picture. I'm struggling to cut  out the horses mane within photoshop. Are there any easy ways of doing  this?
I don't want the horse to  look like it's been stuck on a piece of black card, I'm after it to look  either feathered or blurred if that makes sense.

I'm thinking of blurring the edges of the horse slightly so it blends into the background.

I've not got a clue where to start


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## Overread (Apr 12, 2012)

What editing software are you currently using?


Also is there any chance to re-take the photos - the easy way to get these shots is in camera rather than in editing.


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## angelkissingdevil (Apr 12, 2012)

I'm using CS5 but I also have Elements 9.  I did look up and found a great idea of using the extract filter but then found out that CS5 doesn't have the extract filter anymore it was replaced.  About my luck lol.

I'm a real novice with taking photos so wouldn't know where to start with regards to making the background look black.


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## Forkie (Apr 12, 2012)

What version of Photoshop are you using?

From CS5 upwards you can draw roughly around the subject, then from the top menu click Select>Refine Edge, under "Edge Detection" tick the "Smart Radius" box and adjust the slider until you're happy with the selection and click OK.  Then, reverse the selection (ctrl+shift+I) and fill with black.  Job done.


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## angelkissingdevil (Apr 13, 2012)

Peano said:


> It will depend a lot of the background you're replacing with black. If it's a white or very light background, that will make it more difficult to get a realistic result. Another factor is the amount of fine detail (hairs, etc) you need to mask out.



It's a lot of grass and sky so I'm struggling to keep the hair.


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## o hey tyler (Apr 14, 2012)

Peano said:


> angelkissingdevil said:
> 
> 
> > It's a lot of grass and sky so I'm struggling to keep the hair.
> ...



I would venture to guess that it was in the HTML code that KmH edited out of her post because she didn't know how to post an image via BB code. Which if that's the case would be kind of silly, because it's not tough to extract the url that ends in .jpeg and delete the rest. 

But I could be wrong.


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## angelkissingdevil (Apr 15, 2012)

This is the file I'm trying to edit, I want to remove the white rail and keep the rider/horse.  

this is the effect I'm trying to go for.  gypsy horse | Flickr - Photo Sharing!


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## angelkissingdevil (Apr 15, 2012)

Peano said:


> angelkissingdevil said:
> 
> 
> > I want to remove the white rail and keep the rider/horse.
> ...




Really?  I thought this would be easy, I've managed to select and start to refine the subject etc but just where the mane is I can't seem to remove the colour showing through.  That is the only thing I'm struggling with now.


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## IByte (Apr 15, 2012)

Peano said:
			
		

> That's really advanced work. If you're a beginner at Photoshop, it's probably beyond your reach. There's certainly no easy way to do it.



Possibly content aware feature, but you will need the Youtubes for fine tweaking it good luck.


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## Overread (Apr 15, 2012)

You'll have problems

I assume you're just cropping the white rail out, which is already covering part of the horses mouth and the cropping might end up shaving another bit or two off as well. You've no similar data to restore from so the horse will have an oddly flat looking mouth. You can't clone the white rail out certainly without going into extensive restoration work (and honestly for the amount of detailed areas you have to rebuild I'd just become a digital artist and draw it from scratch how you wanted it).

The hair in the mane might be fixable, but you'll still have a lot of work to get a natural looking black background around the subject and rider. You might find the following video helpful:





Despite the advertising, whilst editing is very powerful its not simple and many methods can take a very long time to get just right for a quality result.


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