How To Create A Digital Background

Putting Your Subject into a Digital Background

by Briana Salcedo

So you're interested in digital backgrounds? Wonderful! To show your subject in the most beautiful location without the hassle of traveling, this is a great way to do it. To do so, you'll need (1) a full body photograph of a client or subject and (2) a digital background to place them in.

We offer our own backgrounds, in case you haven't checked them out! The tutorial on this page is the same as this article; use whichever method you prefer to edit your photo!

So first of all, you're going to select your subject, cut them out of their boring background, and drop them into your prettier digital background. Isolating your subject is the most tedious part and requires some time and patience, but if you do a good job, the results will be worth it!

Making selections in Photoshop is kind of like a cut paper project - you cut out images and paste them all together to make a new one! The difference with Photoshop is that each time you cut out an image, you can get a much more precise selection because of the tools that Adobe offers.

For cutting out a person, most of the picture will be easy to cut out because the edges are relatively flat. Hair, however, can be tricky, and there are some tips here so that you may easily define hair to capture as much detail as possible.

A good technique is to try using the quick selection tool initially, and then use the other tools to refine for the more difficult areas. Your initial selection should include everything you want to select minus as much background as possible; you'll be able to cut out extra areas later.

In older versions of Photoshop, once you've used the quick selection tool an option to "Refine Edge" will pop up on the top part of the screen. Click on it (keep your "Adjust Edge" selections the same) and refine your difficult edges by clicking the +paint brush. Brushing over edges where flyaway hairs are; it should appear as if you are isolating the hairs. Once you're satisfied with the selection, scroll down to the checkbox that says "Decontaminate colors" and click it. Output to a new layer with a layer mask.

For Creative Cloud CC users, the process is similar, but you'll have to go into Select and Mask. Select the brush that looks like it has a flame around it, make sure it's on the +, and paint around individual hairs to isolate them. Once you're satisfied with your selection, check on the decontaminate colors box, and output to a new layer with a layer mask.

From here, you can clean up you selection manually where Photoshop wasn't able to detect color. At this point, it should be small changes. I recommend you place a white background underneath your selection to make any extra bits stand out more. Paint with a soft, black brush on your layer mask to hide parts of the selection, and paint white to add any areas back on.

Once you've done this, you should have a mostly clean edge selection! That was time consuming, but thankfully the rest is very easy! Now all you have to do is drop your selection into one of our digital background .PSD files. With your layer selected, click CTRL+C and place your layer with CTRL+V.

I put my selection in between the background and "Light streams" layer so that she is underneath the light.

Some small changes I'll add are:

A final touch-up on the selection edges by adding with white or subtracting with black on the layer mask.
Resizing her with CTRL+T to fit the background.
Adding a small blur in the front of her dress to go with the background (I used the Background Blur Brush).
Painting black on the Light Stream layer mask where her face is (to balance out the light).
Adding a vivid blue butterfly overlay.
Adding a color tone - I used "Colorful Rich Cool" from The Legacy Action Collection.

And wow, what a difference! I especially love how even up close, the detail remains. The blue in the butterfly brings out the color of the ribbons in her dress, and the color toning makes the colors more saturated, like jewels. Before she was among an Autumn background, but now she's a princess in a forest!

If you have any questions, feel free to leave them in the comments! Thank you for reading!