Green Screen

So I know awhile back I said I was going to do a tutorial on how to use a green screen, and I have finally gotten around to doing the tutorial!  Sorry it took so long.


Here's the image I will be using... this is a before and after of what I will be doing.

First I took and opened my image and my background image I wanted to use. 

Next I took my magic wand tool and selected all of the green.  Make sure you get all of the little places such as between her legs and arms.  It'll make it easier in the long run to have as much of the green selected as possible.  Once I did that I hit CTRL J to make a copy of the layer without Samantha in it.  It is important to make sure you do not have any of the subject in this selection.

Once I have layer1 I then take and drag my background image onto my subject image.  I then take and go to edit free transform and make my background to the size I want and place it where I would like it (Note this can be done at anytime throughout all of this. Doing it at this stage you will not be able to see your subject).  Once I have my background to where I think it needs to be I got to Layers- Create Clipping Mask.  Once you click on that your subject will show through.  Basically everything that was selected and made into layer1 is now covered by your background.  If you notice there are some unpleasant edges and some green showing through especially around her hair.  This is what I will be focusing on next.

If you notice I have layer1 selected as my working layer and I have chosen green as my color for my brush tool.  I will be drawing directly onto layer1 which as you do, you will notice my background replacing it.  This is because you are adding more information to your clipping mask layer.  There were a few areas where I needed to smooth my outline and I wasn't able to do it by adding to the layer, so I made a mask and covered over what I needed to.  This process can take a long time or a short time depending how much green you have showing through.

Now I need to get some shadows back so it looks like she is actually laying on the floor instead of floating above it.  I created a new layer and have chosen my brush tool with black as my color.  Notice I have changed my brush from normal to multiply and my opacity is down.  This is because I don't want black showing through, instead I want to darken small areas around Samantha to replace the shadows that are no longer visible.  When creating your shadow's don't worry about getting the black on your subject because you will be making this a clipping mask also so anything on your subject will disappear.

Now that I have my subject looking natural again, it's time to make the background look more real.  I went to filter-blur-gaussian blur to create depth of field within this picture so the background looks natural.  Notice when you choose how much you want to blur the entire image blurs.  This is where I create a mask on the image and use my brush tool to color in what I do not want blurred.  This can be done at your discretion as everyone has a different idea of what they think looks natural.

 

 

And that is how you add a digital backdrop using a green screen.  It's pretty simple.  Once I finished this I did some post editing to really make the image look more natural and this is my finished product!