One of Deke’s Assignments for Chapter 4 of Photoshop Channels and Masks is to take these big rough stone statues, found on Easter Island and separate them from their light background, placing them into a dark omenous sky background.

We’ve used various selection tools before and we might be tempted at first to use the quick selection tool, but even better than that we have Color Range. We run into a problem with our selection and Deke explains that it isn’t because Color Range didn’t do its job.What often is the culprit when we see a halo around a solid object and a sky, it is because of sharpening that’s going on. Often it is the digital camera’s fault.

Before telling you a bit about Deke’s solution and also another added solution, it’s good to see just how Color Range itself works. Fortunately for us Lynda.com helps us see Deke himself demonstrate use of the Color Range tool in his top 40 Photoshop features. http://tinyurl.com/yf9ssah — gives us an acquaintance with Color Range.

After seeing that movie, know that with our example in the book we need to get acquainted with the Refine Edge tool and remember that while you are attempting to choke the bright edges that you also want to provide some softness area between the rough edged stone and the background. So, play around with your settings. As famous Photoshop Guru Bert Monroy always says, you learn the most when you play!

Settings to play with in the Refine Edge Panel

Oh, as for an added help when you have a halo due to the sharpening done to the photo. Add a blank layer over the layer of our image and take a look at whether the halo is lighter or darker than the sky. If lighter, set the color mode of the layer itself to be “darken” if the halo is darker than the sky, set the color mode of the layer to be “lighten”. Use the eye dropper tool and sample the color of the sky near our halo. Grab the paint brush tool and paint into the halo with that color. There you have it!