Anime Masks
Image Masking For Your Difficult Hairs
When you design an animated video you want the main object to be without a background. This helps to place it on different background and apply different styles to it.
Animating video is based on certain theme which you select before the actual work begins. If your object is a book or a pen you can easily remove it from its background using image clipping (a pen tool is used in Photoshop for clipping path). When the image or object is a girl / boy with big hairs or a peacock with feathers spread around then you cannot imagine clipping to solve your problem.
The next solution to this is the masking. Image masking is a method in Photoshop that helps you clip or remove objects from its background. It helps to remove complex objects where minute details count; it has a pretty more work than a pen tool. Masking images are better in appearance as they can provide the detailed hairs even removed from the background picture.
You can later use them for your animations. Detailed instructions describing how an Image masking operation is done can be obtained from any tutorial, but as I discussed about it I will explain in brief.
Steps for masking an image:
1. Make a duplicate layer of the image so that we are not manipulating the original one. 2. You can then hide the background through the visibility icon. Click it to hide the background. 3. Then select Color Range from the Menu above and choose the Left Eye Dropper tool and select the background color. Make the image mostly black by moving fuzziness slider and till you get the background clean. White is the area which we need to remove. 4. Choose the Channels palette with your selection being kept active. 5. Click the save selection channel button, to make the new alpha channel visible. 6. Press “Ctrl” to Deselect and click on Alpha 1 in the channels palette. 7. This will make the main window turn black and white. 8. Now choose a brush and make the edge hard and paint over all the areas that belong in the object to mask out. 9. Hold “Ctrl” key and click on the Alpha 1 thumbnail. You will now see an active selection. 10. Then click on RGB to see the color image and select the working layer and press the Backspace key. Now you have your object masked.
The steps are pretty easy; you need to do adjustments so that the object does not lose its details. While masking in photoshop you may notice that there are certain areas that need a bit fine tuning. You can then repeat the above steps to get a bit better effect.
When you use this technique regularly, you will notice that it is all easy to get the things done. Also you may appoint some staffs who are better at these skills and you can concentrate on other tasks for animating your video.
With the outsourcing trend being active, many Design firms have started outsourcing their works offshore to reduce their work and to eliminate excess manpower and infrastructure requirements.
As far as image outsourcing is concerned the editing of images is not so risky. You may trust a better organization in the market, which has proved its expertise with its work. Try providing a tedious work at first. Get it fine and then you can be sure at your later works.
About the Author
I can provide quality photoshop masking / image masking services at affordable cost…
Mask/masking in Anime Studio Pro 7