Select and Mask in Photoshop 2021 – New Features

Learn to use the new Select and Mask features in Photoshop 2021. Hair selections are a lot easier with a few clicks. Select and Mask in Photoshop 2021, Refine Hair with a click. Use the Refine Modes to work with simple or complex backgrounds.

Cutout Short Hair Using Select and Mask in Photoshop

Hello, everybody, my name is Charles. In this video, I’m gonna show you the new features in the Select and Mask workspace in Photoshop 2021. These new features help with the cutting out of hair by cutting down on the work that was needed before. To get to the Select and Mask workspace, you can either come to the lasso tool or the quick selection tool and you’ll see the button here for Select and Mask. Or you can come up here to Select, Select and Mask. Now, you have to make a selection first. You can either make a selection outside of the Select and Mask workspace. The reason you might do that is because you might wanna save this selection off to the side and use it later. Or, which is probably better, come straight into the Select and Mask workspace and then you can choose your view mode, whichever you’re comfortable working with. I’m gonna work with onion skin and I’m going to keep the transparency where it was and then use the Select Subject button.

And so one thing to note with cutting out hair on a busy background, yes, this is a busy background with the bricks but it’s darker and she has darker hair. So those two things are going to work to your advantage. You’ve just got to remember that sometimes, it depends on your background, how good these tools are actually going to work. Not only just the tools like the one-click tool you saw, the select subject, but if you’re doing things a little bit more manual, you’re going to have a little bit more work but this is a great starting point. So now there’s a new button here called Refine Hair. So previously when selecting hair, one would create an initial foreground selection and then paint using the refine edge brush to refine the mask along the edges of the hair.

So this new Refine Hair button replaces this manual brushing by automatically creating and refining the edges along the hair with a single click. So let’s see what that does. I’m gonna zoom in just a little bit and then click on it. Let’s see what happens. And you can see a little bit of change there. Click on this Show Edge checkbox. That’s what the edge looks like and you can still use the refine edge brush. In fact, I’m going to use that along here. And you can use the other view modes, like On Black. You can see how it looks, or On White. Just On Layers. So we’ve got pretty good detail just with two clicks. And you don’t have to use the refine edge brush if you don’t think you need it but what else is new is this Refine Mode.

And so there are two Refine Modes, Object Aware and Color Aware. And when you’re trying to select hair and other fine elements of an image, particularly when the foreground and background are similar in color or hard to differentiate, use the Object Aware mode. And when you have a photo with a simple background and high color contrast with the subject, the Color Aware mode may yield the better results, especially when used in combination with define edge brush.

So you can use either of these Refine Modes in combination with the refine edge brush. So if I click on Color Aware, it’s gonna warn me that my edge may change. I’m gonna say OK. And I saw a little bit of a change there. Or you can use the other mode, Object Aware mode and see which one is better. I think the Object Aware mode was better. And then what I would do is I would save this work at this point and I’ll put to new layer with layer mask. And say OK. And then I’m gonna put this Color Fill layer below that just so you can see. So that did a pretty good darn good job.

Now we can go back in to Select and Mask. I just highlight the layer mask and come up here to Select and Mask. There’s another new feature. This Remember Settings checkbox. If I decide to add some smoothing, a bit of feathering, contrast and shift the edge. It’s a little bit too much. And I say Remember Settings. Meet up with this layer again. And if I come back into Select and Mask, those settings are still there. Not only can I remember the settings, but if I really wanted to come back to these settings at another time, I can save everything as a preset.

So I can say Save Preset and all the global refinements will be saved as a preset. Notice, after I made changes in the Select and Mask workspace, I outputted that change as a layer with a layer mask. You may notice, if you go back to your layers, which of these changes you like most that you can go on from here and work further. And sometimes multiple of these layers all combined will give you the best results. So there’s the before, and there’s the after. So it did a pretty good job of cutting that out. You can see that the detail is there. Before and after. This was select and mask in photoshop 2021

Cutout Long Hair using Select and Mask in Photoshop

Let’s try this example here. A little bit lighter background. We have a different hair color and hair texture. Let’s see what Select and Mask does with the new features. I’m gonna make sure I’m on Object Aware because I’m using the best choice here for hair and click on Select Subject. And without even thinking about using Refine Hair or the Refine Hair button, you can output this as a new layer with layer mask and kind of test it. Put a Color Fill layer underneath it and see how it looks. I’ll turn all these layers off and go back in the Select and Mask workspace and I’ll try the Refine Hair. And you did see that change a little bit. I am on Object Aware Refine Mode because this is the best fit for hair. And I’ll take it out to new layer with layer mask and test it out there. So that’s pretty good. It does need more refining. I can go back in Select and Mask and I can use the refine edge brush. Change my brush size and just brush on the outside here. Something like that and I’ll put it again and see if I like it. And I actually like it before I did the brush. And that’s one way you can test and see what the best options are for you. So I’m gonna delete that one. And this is the one that I would work on going forward. This was select and mask in photoshop 2021

So that’s just with the select subject and refine hair brush and Refine Hair button. And if I turn that one back on, I can decide whether I want to keep that layer or not. So there’s before and there’s the after. So it’s still got a lot of detail but again, it’s not perfect. One or two clicks will give you this.

Using Select and Mask with a Simple Background – Select and Mask in Photoshop

Let’s see how these new features work for this simple background in this image. So I use Select Subject and there’s the selection. Let me check it on black. That’s pretty good. You still have all that detail there. You may have to do a little work but that’s pretty good for one click. Let’s look at Refine Hair, what that does. Now see, we don’t wanna use Refine Hair in this case because of all this. So I’m gonna reset this workspace down here on the bottom. Go into select subject again and this time, I’m going to change the Refine Mode.

Let’s see what happens when we go into Color Aware. It seems to have no effect there. I’ll go back to Object Aware. And there was a little change there. And I’m gonna output this to new layer with layer mask. Bring this fill layer down. And that’s pretty good with just select subject. That’s something to think about. This was select and mask in photoshop 2021

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See the latest article on photoshop 2021 new features 👉 https://charlescabrera.com/neural-filters-in-photoshop-2021-new-feature/