Select Transparent Stuff with Blend Modes! - Photoshop Tutorial

today I'm going to show you how to select transparent objects very easily by using blend modes and also create a composite out of it with reflections and shadows before we go any further into this video we have to understand that it's very difficult if not impossible to select transparent objects especially when the background is busy and why is that because the object itself may reflect the existing background thus making it extremely difficult to change so the background needs to be flat or contrasting also the methods to select different types of transparent or translucent objects is different check out my previous video on selecting a translucent object which was a veil of the bride today we're gonna do it with a glass on a white background and for a black background the steps are gonna be very similar so without any further ado let's get started so here we n Photoshop CC 2018 now some of you are wondering why am I not using the latest 2019 I just did a video about it why is that well the 2019 has some bugs and a lot of you guys have reported the bugs to me so unless the bugs get resolved I'm gonna stick to 2018 so that you don't face a problem because sometimes for sapling is especially on Windows on Mac there are issues as well but on Windows the composites are looking a little different especially there's a blend mode issues some people are seeing some lines and stuff they'll solve that later let's hope Adobe solves that but till then we're gonna use CC 2018 now the first thing we do is to have the background open I'm gonna make the background available for you to download check the links in the description for image downloads and stuff so here we have the background and on top of it we need to drag and drop in the glass so I'm just gonna open up my Explorer or finder and drag and drop it just over it now let's adjust the size you can hold shift and the alt together to make it bigger from the center just like so I'm gonna make it this big and place it rightly in a right place all right now once the placement is done you're gonna change the blend mode of this one to multiply now I multiply let's have a look the background is white right now what multiply blend mode does is that it just multiplies think of black as zero and why is that because black is nothing that means no light right so black is zero and think of white as one okay now since the multiply blend mode multiplies let's have a closer look at it if I multiply one which is white with some other number what is gonna be the result the number itself right so if I multiply 1 into 47 it's gonna be 47 so therefore when you choose the blend mode multiply and you have white white multiplies with that color and in results you get exactly that color in other words white hides right it becomes that color because it's 1 and 1 multiplied by any color is the color itself on the other hand black is 0 so 0 multiplied by any number is what even if it is 1 billion 0 multiplied by 1 billion is 0 so whenever there is black and he choose to multiply blend mode it makes other stuff black as well because it is 0 so let's go ahead and choose the blend mode multiplier there we go the white background goes away because it becomes the background color all right this is looking all great but the shine is gone we want the shine so what do we do but before the shine there's a little less depth to it so we're gonna make a copy of this one select this press ctrl or command J to make a copy now as you can see it's very dark we will decrease the opacity to somewhere around 40 ish forties fine now let's make one more copy and this is above the shine control or command J change the opacity to hundred percent now what is the blend mode which is the exact opposite of multiply because this time we want the shine and that is screen keep in mind screen is exact opposite of multiply multiply hides 100 percent white and shows 100 percent black screen on the other hand shows 100 percent white and hides 100 percent black all right so let's go ahead and choose screen screen right dance multiply darkens keep in mind it has brought the shine which is great but it has also frightened some other areas that we didn't want so we will take the help of blend if in this case so all we need to do double click on the right hand side of the lane what if I take away the dark areas or relatively dark areas off this layer which is the glass layer with the screen blend mode from this layer so if we take this slider from the left at the right as you can see the dark areas are going away keeping only the extreme right areas right but it is very harsh and the background is not gone don't worry about the background we're gonna take care of that later but this seems to be fine now it's very harsh so we'll hold the alt or option click on in here to separate it and then separate just like so now once you're satisfied just hit OK over here it ok now we need to take care of the background for the background you can always do this you can turn off the background layer we just have the glass right we can use the magic wand to self-select the magic wand to keep in mind the tolerance is low right now if I select it it also selects the inside of the glass we don't want that to happen press ctrl or command D to deselect that decrease the tolerance to zero and increase it just a little bit 1 or 2 or 3 something like that and let's see if it selects it let's keep it at 2 okay it does a pretty good selection as you can see it's beautiful there a couple of areas which needs correction like this area but that's ok it has selected the white areas I also want to select the other areas outside of it as well so I will hold the shift key see the plus sign on top of it hold the shift key click on the outside to select all of it now we have selected everything but the glass it's just the opposite so we need to invert the selection press ctrl shift I command shift I to invert the selection and then simply click on the mask button as you can see the mask has been created now let's turn on the background perfect right now it's very bright we will decrease the opacity to somewhere around let's go for 72 is fine now we need to correct masks here in there simple take the brush and make sure the foreground color is black need the brush a little bigger let's make it a little bigger you can press D to reset the swatches and you can always press X to toggle the foreground and the background color with the foreground color black just paint on these areas the extras all right let's zoom in we need to be careful over here just a little careful you can take your time to make as much accurate selections as you want this is just a simple one as you can see there's a little bit left out over there so we're gonna change it to white by pressing X and then we're gonna fill it just like so here a little bit is left out simply fill it easy easy peasy anything over here we know that that's fine that's natural yeah everything else looks fine to me alright now that we have done that we have to just adjust it in a way so that it fits with the background now at this point I would prefer to take a short break and then get back to the image because there are certain things that we don't notice as we are so engrossed in editing the image now that I took a break and now that I see it I can see it's very dark on the outside so we're gonna select the glass copy and decrease the opacity even more maybe something like that and select the first one and just decrease the opacity a little bit something like this see it's looking so much more realistic at this point right okay so we need to make those decisions of taking little breaks this looks to be fine now it's time for us to adjust the color select the topmost layer so that when we create a new layer or an adjustment layer it creates on top of everything else alright so let's go ahead and create a solid color adjustment layer doesn't matter what the color is just hit OK and change the blend mode to color all right now we want to limit the color just to the glass now keep in mind since these glass layers are actively using blend modes we cannot use a clipping mask over here even if we try by holding the alt or option clicking in the line between these two this just doesn't work right so we have to use masking hold the alt or option click on this one to break the clipping mask or just don't make a clipping mask all we need to do hold the alt or option drag this mask and drop it over this mask alright replace layer mask yes we want to replace it here okay so now it limits to just this class now you can double click here and choose any color you want so make sure the sample size is 5 by 5 or 11 by 11 something like that and then take a sample from the surroundings for example this one the looks to be fine hit okay and decreased opacity it's very high so let's go ahead and play with the opacity for this one fifty is fine I guess we can always adjust it later let's go 45-ish now it's time for us to create the reflection how do we do that well select the background layer and make a copy of it press ctrl or command J okay now place the background layer on top we need to keep in mind that the reflection on the bottom surface of the glass will be upside down let's have a look so let's turn this off first so the reflection over here as you can see since this area is reflecting this surface it will be upside down so what do we do we turn this on okay and then ctrl or command T right click on it and flip over to go just like so and Jen then she has to adjust it and let's decrease the opacity so that we can see what's happening 5857 is fine we can always adjust that later this position seems to be fine and we can just take it up a little bit this is okay press ctrl or command T and this is important right-click on it and choose warp now this is the main thing over here you need to bring in in the shape of the glass just like so I'm gonna bring this point over here bring this point over here just like so and take these points so that they become something like this you have to maintain the shape of the glass see how the shape is maintained over here very carefully just like so now you wanna make it a little narrower so that makes sense let's bring this point okay that looks good let's try to bring this point even closer let's try to bring this point off as well closer just like so now we might have to make some adjustments over here now it looks pretty good maybe we need to make it even more narrower okay now once you're fine with this just hit Enter overturn now to make it even more a narrower and give it a shape you better use liquify so go to filter and then liquify you could have converted it into a smart object but that's not required in this case let's just zoom in to this point this is okay we want to see the background so make sure you check show backdrop so that you can see what's going on over there all right you can choose use all layers mode in front it's also going to show you the previous position see how nicely we are giving it a shape you don't have to be very accurate here okay no one says satisfied you can just hit okay as you can see it's perfect now we would need the same mask over here so hold the alt or option click and drag and drop it over here now as you can see it's looking very good now we need to remove it from the highlights and how can we do that simple double click on the right hand side we also need to remove it from the shadows as well so we need to remove it from the highlights of the underlying layer in other words we need to remove this reflection from the highlights of the layer which is underneath it so we will use this area not the top one the bottom slider so first of all let's remove the darkness austere highlights we will do it later this one is fine let's break it apart hold the order option break it apart and we're gonna keep it this way let's remove the highlights hold the alt or option break it apart let's keep it this way stick it all the way to the left and this take this one all the way to the right hit okay how does this look let's increase the opacity now wow this looks so much more natural now have a look at the reflection before after before after so much more natural now we don't want any reflection here at the bottom so we will simply go ahead and select the mask take a brush make it big and soft but the foreground color black just dab at the bottom but the opacity and flow 800 just dab at the bottom just like so and here we have a mild reflection like that now it's time for us to create a nice shadow for this one the light is very diffused so there won't be a hard shadow very soft shadow even a little bit of shadow is already in there so you don't have to work so much hard for the shadow let's select the background layer because we want to create a shadow above the background layer and below all of these glasses so let's create a new layer and then simply take the brush black is the foreground color and then you can make the brush the size of this bottom side I don't know what to call it the base just click once like that that's all you need to do then press ctrl or command D and adjust it according to the shadow that you want you if you want to make it bigger you can or smaller you can that's absolutely upon you I'm gonna place it right over here maybe I'll just increase the length a little bit something like this it's fine for me maybe a little bigger from there just play with it all right now you're satisfied with this now once you're okay just simply decrease the opacity that's all that we need to do 48 or 40 is fine now at this point I want to adjust it a little bit okay all right now if you want you can also change the color of the shadow so we will create a solid color adjustment layer and choose any color doesn't matter now hit OK and then hold the alt or option click on the line between these two this limits the shadow limits the color to the shadow and then you can change the color to whatever you want so I'm gonna select something like this color over there and then make it darker select B V stands for brightness I'll select B and just to make it darker and maybe increase the saturation so that see the color has a little shadow has a little tint okay that looks so much more realistic than just the black there you go that's how to do it I just spent a little more time with this and here is the final result so that's how to remove white backgrounds from transparent objects now if you're up for a challenge removing black backgrounds follows very similar steps but things are a little reversed so if you want to try it tweak it I give you a challenge try it and let me know tag me and probably I'll create a tutorial about it so meanwhile just a quick little recap first of all we opened the background we started with the background right then we brought in the glass and placed it and changed the blend mode to multiply why because multiplied darkens it would hide the white and show the blacks all right then we made one more copy just for refining it a little bit and we brought in one more copy and changed the blend mode to screen because screen brightens you wanted the shine but when we changed the blend mode to screen the background showed up because the background was white as film so we used the mask and blend F to remove excess of the brightness or bright areas once we do all of this we need to adjust it to the background and to adjust it first of all we adjusted the color we created a solid color adjustment layer change the blend mode to color and used mask to limit it just to the glass you can also increase or decrease the opacity later and after that we created a reflection we turned it upside down we made a copy of the background and then used warp to confirm it to the glass and then used liquify to even refine it more right and just with the normal blend mode opacity and we used a blend if to remove the highlight areas and the dark areas just to make it so much more natural also at the end we simply used a brush to create a simple shadow and we added a little color to it hope this video helped you and if it did make sure to give us a like and also don't forget to subscribe and not just subscribe ring the bell so that you my friend don't miss any other future dip trick or tutorial I would like to take this moment to thank all these nice and amazing people for supporting this channel on patreon and helping keep pigs in perfect free for everybody forever thank you so much for your support thank you for watching I'll see you guys in my next one till then stay tuned and make sure that you keep creating [Music]

Channel: PiXimperfect

Views: 1,751,458

Rating: 4.9244995 out of 5

Keywords: select transparent objects in photoshop, blending mode, masking, select glass, photoshop tips and tricks, compositing, photo manipulation, create reflection, shadows, warp, liquify, blend-if, match color in photoshop, change background, adobe, piximperfect, unmesh dinda

Id: uX_iinoB1fA

Length: 18min 23sec (1103 seconds)

Published: Sun Oct 21 2018