Need Help Cloning Out Background

[Kit-V]

As a long time Lightroom user, I recently started to familiarize myself with a few tools in Photoshop that either improve on or do what Lightroom cannot do. Here is my dilemma: I have a portrait of a woman in the foreground with windblown hair. Unfortunately part of the background is rather distracting. I would like to either clone out the distractions for even replace part of the background by somehow masking the woman's individual disheveled hairs. I have no clue how to do this.

I certainly do not expect anyone to give me a step-by-step lesson on how to do this. But if someone could kindly point me toward an online tutorial to get me started, I would be most appreciative. Thank you.

Kit

[mshea]

There's a new Topaz Remask product out that might do the job. They probably have a trial version you could play around with.

[Kit-V]

Thank you for the suggestion. Truth be known, I found several tutorials on masking hair but came to the conclusion that to do an excellent job will require far more Photoshop skills than I have. I can follow the various steps to create the mask, but the skillful execution lies in being familiar with the myriad controls & tweaks within Photoshop. Gotta learn to walk before I run, so to speak.

[Jeffrey Saldinger]

I think these might assist you with the "myriad controls & tweaks within Photoshop" that help with selections and masks.

https://www.lynda.com/Photoshop-tutorials/Using-Select-Mask-mode/756331/783374-4.html (Tim Grey)
https://www.lynda.com/Photoshop-tutorials/Photoshop-Masking-Compositing-Hair/91589-2.html (Deke Mcclelland).

My own experience with these two contributors is positive across an array of Photoshop's abilities. Tim Grey also has a lot of material on digital asset management and file development in Lightroom.

[jrsforums]

This might give you some ideas...

https://youtu.be/v_kitSYKr3s

[Kit-V]

Thank you all for the suggestions. I really appreciate it. I decided to try the trial version of Topaz Remask that mshea suggested. It seems quite impressive for all its user simplicity. As a note, it seems like Topaz Labs has replaced Remask with Mask AI. But Remask is still available.

Again, thank you!

Kit

[tsinsf]

I consider myself an expert at Photoshop, but I never would try to make a selection of fine bits of hair...that is really a very advanced technique, not for the faint of heart.

[Kit-V]

I consider myself an expert at Photoshop, but I never would try to make a selection of fine bits of hair...that is really a very advanced technique, not for the faint of heart.

As a Photoshop neophyte, I appreciate you saving me from frustration. The Topaz Remask appears to be able to meet my limited needs for background replacement.

[Benny Profane]

You've found what is the most challenging issue in beauty retouching with photoshop. There are some retouchers who make a decent living doing this well. Impossible without a pen and Wacom tablet, but, then again, most high end retouching requires those tools. In the end, it actually requires drawing, or rendering hair back in to the image after siloed.

[Daverich]

I wonder if some of the people commenting here aren’t using the current version of Photoshop. Doing things like selecting wind blown hair are certainly easier than it used to be.

https://photoshopcafe.com/cut-anything-photoshop-3-best-ways-remove-backgrounds-photos/

[BobShaw]

Invest $29 or so in Creative Live, 30 Days of Photoshop.
You will occupy the remainder of Covid.
I am about a year into the 30 days but you can skip to lessons you want.

[BobShaw]

I was pretty excited when I discovered Select / Subject in CC2020
It does a pretty good job out of the box.

[Kit-V]

Bob, I will definitely take a look.

Just an update on Topaz Remask (now updated to Topaz Mask AI): The full version of the app is available on a 30-day trial. Without a basis for comparison, I was quite impressed with the software's ability to automatically select the subject. Although it may not be perfect, the tools to tweak the selection are intuitive & simple to use. Of course using the software for the first time requires a bit of practice.

Once downloaded, Topaz Mask AI is usable either as a standalone app or as a PS plugin. However, I did run into a major glitch with the standalone. After I was finished with Mask AI & saved the image as a TIFF, I could not open the file in Lightroom, PS or Preview (for Mac users). According to the folks at Topaz, this was a seldom-heard issue that they are researching for me. However, using it as a plugin in PS seems to work fine.

So, based on a couple of responses on this thread, I will explore PS a bit more for comparison to Topaz Mask AI.