This week we continue with our look at Selections with an emphasis on the Pen Tool. Our subject matter presents a very different tonal situation from last week, a portrait on a white background. These differences prompt us to use a different selection tool, the venerable Pen Tool. In low contrast situations with soft detail edges, nothing is better at making a selection. Its accuracy combined with its ability to be edited with great precision make it a tool you really should master. After creating our selection we will continue to refine the image selection it is new background and cover some techniques to make its presence more realistic.

I have always said that mastery of Selections is the most important skill you can learn in Photoshop. They are the doorway to amazing control over tonality, color, and emphasis as well as the vehicle to create believable and unbelievable composite images. It is a deep topic and I will devote three consecutive episodes to Selections in both Photoshop CS2 and the CS3 Beta. Our first episode focuses on a selection of a figure with fine detail, that is hair and we will approach it with three tools, the Magic Wand, Color Range, and converting an existing color channel, altering it and turning it into a selection. Along the way we will as always revisit some techniques from previous episodes, as they are a part of building and manipulating our selections.

In this episode we explore image composite as I presented it to my Creative Photoshop class at the Palm Beach Photographic Centre in Florida. The idea was to explore many concepts in one exercise, from working in camera raw, to placing an image from the Bridge, creating a selection with the pen tool, working with Smart Objects and masks and finally with Smart Filters. We also managed to get a Blend Mode in there as well. I hope to do more of these project based podcasts that start with a concept and utilize the tools necessary in Photoshop to execute that concept. Along the way we will revisit many of the Photoshop features and tools we have examined in isolation but this time within the context of building an actual image. I hope you enjoy it.

In this episode we explore converting color images to grayscale. In Photoshop CS2 we use an adjustment layer technique to create not only a grayscale effect but an infrared effect as well. I first learned of this technique on Kent Conklin's Two Minute Photoshop Tricks and have found it a great way to mimic an infrared look. We then explore how Photoshop Lightroom and Photoshop CS3 allow the same conversions. Adobe is making it easier and easier to make beautiful black and white images form your raw files or existing color scans. My feeling is that more and more artists will take advantage of this and choose to work in black and white.