Sophie: I need help

[Hazel Grant]

I know this isn't wildlife, etc. but I do need some help. This is a photo of Sophie, my son's elderly dog who is 13. He and I love the "pose" butI need help with the background. I have tried masking and painting in the background with a solid color, but those haven't worked because I lose the tips of her hair. My husband and grandchild in the background need to go to make this what I had hoped for in a photo. Any suggestions? Thanks to all! (This is an unretouched photo that I know needs some other work, but right now I'd just like help with the background and then I could go on to other adjustments.)

[Hazel Grant]

I'll try again to post the photo.

[pat lillich]

hey Hazel, I lost my Max, a golden like Sophie, in December. I'm really wishing I had taken more pictures.

I'm not very good at this, but until the post processing artists here get a chance to answer you, here is one thing you can try - the picture below is a less than 5 minute try.

Use the magic wand tool (the wand with a star head that alternates with the quick selection tool in Photoshop) and work your way around Sophie's outline with lots of clicks. when you get the fur pretty well selected, use the lassoo tool to include the large areas of background. Then zoom in on her fur and carefully select as well as you can

what you are doing is selecting all of the background that you want to replace.

Save that selection, then go to the layer menu and choose new layer via copy. this gives you a layer that is just the background that you want to replace (more or less)

click on the original layer, from the select menu, choose load selection, and load back in the selection you saved, and tell it to inverse.

now create a new layer from copy, and rearrange your layers so this one (of Sophie) is the top one.

Now you can do anything you want in the background layer without affecting Sophie too much - for example, to make it really obvious what I was doing, I chose a neutral brown color and sprayed the background with it (with the paintbrush) ----- you could just really darken the existing background, or could replace it with another picture too.

I could see that I hadn't done a very good job of selecting around Sophie's fur - so I went into the layer that is Sophie, zoomed in, and with the paintbrush at about 30% flow, and very small, I sprayed around the edges of Sophie's fur where I had parts of the color from the background - this made it blend in a little bit more naturally.

would love to see what you finally do with the portrait

[pat lillich]

oops, sorry Hazel - I didn't read carefully enough. and i lost her fluffy fur too. Now i really want to see what people suggest...

here is darkening the top with a gradient added.

[John Chardine]

Topaz has a nice set of filters for Photoshop including Remask. It uses colour differences to mask out complex edges like those produced by hair or fur. I would recommend taking a look at this and other Topaz products.

[Hazel Grant]

thanks Pat and John. I will keep working on this following your suggestions and repost when and if I can get it where I want it to be. It may be a while since I"m leaving tomorrow for a trip. THANKS