Specific Scenery in background

[Silvermeow]

Might be alittle harder but can some PS some scenery in the background, realistically looking matching the brightness of my skin to what the sun would reflect and also the angle of the picture taken to the angle of the picture taken in the background. Honestly could care less what scenery is there it could just be all sky, I only care about authenticity. Thank you

 

[polarwoc]

Let us know if you desire any changes to be made.

 

[Silvermeow]

It looks really nice and matches the skin tone, but it looks too fake. It doesn’t have to be some amazing beautiful scenery just anything outside that would look the most realistic.

 

[JazzyScotsman]

Here's a little suggestion, POlarwoc. Desaturate the background a little and add a Lens Blur. Then Shift+COntrol+ALT+E. Then add a photo filter or some Noise over everything. That will integrate everything nicely. Awesome job!

 

[polarwoc]

Thanks @JazzyScotsman for the suggestions. I guess the initial selection during Refine Edge got a lot of small detail around the hair that looked like noise - it would not go away on blurring or on adding noise, so I did the selection again and still followed your suggestions with the following results.

 

[Silvermeow]

Is it possible to change the scenery to somehing more realistic? The angle of my selfies doesn’t match the straight on shot of the background, maybe just sky behind me? Or some lind of background that hides the cropped hair better

 

[IamSam]

@polarwoc Based on the sky and the rocks, where is the sun located in the background you have chosen for this edit? How does the suns location in the background compare to how the subject is lit?

 

[Argos]

My attempt

 

[JazzyScotsman]

I love your composition, Argos! I've spent some time working with this image, and I have to ask what kind of method you used to select the hair. This was a particularly challenging image, with regards to hair selection. I'm currently using a CS3 version of Photoshop, so I was very much relying on 'old school' techniques.

 

[Argos]

Thanks Jazzy, in this case i use pen for the entire image except the hair and beard right side, i made a crapy selection of the hair and beard and use the perfect selection "radius". That creates a good hair selection but a little bit blurry and dark around it, i used a very soft edge selection of that part an apply "level correction" (i 'm not sure if its called that way in english ps), to minimize the dark parts around it. Then i used part of his hair left side to fix the blury parts i couldn't fix.

Hope it's understandable XD.

Cheers!

 

[JazzyScotsman]

Thanks so much! I seriously need to get a subscription to Photoshop CC, but every time I'm about to do it, another crazy expense pops up. I'd be grateful if you knew anywhere I could get a free, more current version of photoshop. Heck! My clone stamp tool doesn't even show a preview!

 

[ZeroCool22]

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[polarwoc]

That is very interesting, @Argos. Like @JazzyScotsman noted, it was an awesome selection work around the hair area which can even be showcased on a light background.
You mentioned selection of radius. I will assume you meant the Edge Detection radius. How do you arrive at the optimal radius value? I hardly use the Smart Radius feature of "Select and Mask" because once it takes control, you can not get back the detail that it blocks out.

 

[Argos]

For me the optimal value is the minimum you need in each photo to get the hair effect, an then try to fix the detail i lost.

 

[Silvermeow]

This time I'm providing the background I want, or even just give me a transparent file of very good cropping around my hair. That long strand on top makes a difference. Anyone of those backgrounds should do but obviously I'd like the most realistic one