Today I Finish Recording “Photoshop Masking & Compositing: Fundamentals”

When I released my first Photoshop Channels & Masks course for lynda.com, it shot to the top of the Online Training Library and remained there for months. Naturally, I’ve been eager to update the videos, but as seems forever to be the case, there have been plenty of other things to occupy my attention.

Fortunately, that unfortunate situation officially changes today. Nearly four years after the release of my last Channels & Masks course, I am just today putting the finishing touches on its update. Only this time around, we’ll be calling the video Photoshop Masking & Compositing: Fundamentals. And it contains all new content. (Okay, so there are a couple of archival projects, but I thoroughly rehashed them, so they’re new too.)

Here’s a sample project, in which I take a couple of foreground subjects, one with lots of hair and the other with lots of feathers:

A woman with hair and a bird with feathers, ready to mask in Photoshop

And I arrange them against a new background, complete with some adventurous compositing techniques and a few synthetic effects:

The two images masked into a new background, with effects, courtesy of Photoshop

Better still, this course is just the beginning. In future months, I’ll be releasing a series of short satellite courses, in which I explore advanced blending, the pen tool, and extreme hair masks, including complex foregrounds set against intricate backgrounds.

I’ll let you know more as these courses release.

Next entry:Steve Job [sic] is Dead

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  • Hooray!

    That’s about all I have to say really…

  • Great

    Can’t wait for a tutorial on compositing!!

  • Yay!

    No rest for the weary, or is it wicked, I get confused with that one:)

  • Great stuff

    Looking forward to this one, worked through Photoshop Channels & Masks, but it was a while ago so has got a bit fuzzy in my brainmind.

    Fundamentals suggests an Advanced to come maybe?

  • There will be no \“Advanced\”

    Instead, there will be 100,000 satellite courses.

    Or, hmm, three. Maybe six. Not sure quite yet.

    We have planned Advanced Blending, Hair, and The Pen Tool. Plus more to follow.

    I’d like to get all George Lucas and tell you about how I foresaw the entire big series. (Which I did/do. I have a plan.) But, see, for GL, that didn’t work out so well. I mean, right off the bat, in Episode 1, “The Phantom Red-Faced Non-Speaking Actor,” Anakin invents C3P0. Which is really weird, right? What normally functioning boy on a desert planet would craft a protocol droid? Okay, maybe a squeaky-idiot battle droid (if desperate). Definitely a spider or hailfire droid. Totally an assassin droid. Astromech droids are cool because R2’s one. But protocol? Seriously, what kid wants one of those? Except maybe to mock, trip, kick, punch, and make fun of?

    Okay, that was a stream of consciousness. Pardon me.

    It’s like this, by which I mean: There will be more. The prequels (of which there will be none, they will all be sequels) will not suck.

  • Sounds like a lot of neat stuff to come

    Any more ammo to help defeat the old foe The Pen Tool will be much appreciated.

    And yep, a protocol droid, a strange child indeed. That universe has lost an accountant I think.

  • AWESOME !!!

    i was looking for a good compositing tutorial based on channels & masking

    thanks deke and See YA !!!

  • HDR

    Maybe HDR could also be mentioned? I mean, automatic + manual (where masking and compositing comes in).

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