Hello, this is Rob here from Rob carbonite.com. And I'm going to enhance this image of a girl DJ. And here is the finished image we're aiming for. And the very first thing we're going to do is take a copy of this layer. So in the Layers palette, which we go windows layers, we go Command or Ctrl J to copy the layer. Now as you can see, there's a lot of distracting background particularly to the right hand side of the model in the image.

Now, you may want to use the contrast between the lightness of the edge of our arm here and the darkness of the distracting background. So you may want to use a tool like magic wand or copier channel to use as a mask there. But up here you've got dark hair in the dark, distracting background as well. So it's very difficult to either Like this background, in fact, on, the only way we can do it, unfortunately is by hand. So I'm going to show you how to do that. And in order to create a selection of an image that is pin sharp and accurate when you have to do it by hand, you need to use the pencil and create a path.

So if you go to Windows paths, you can get the paths layer up, and then in the toolbar, you select the Pen Tool P. Now when you're using the pen tool, it's very important you either choose shape layers paths or fill pixels. And because we are creating a path for selection, we're going to select paths here. And all that does is create a path here and it doesn't create a shape layer or any pixels on the Layers palette. So this is just for selection and it doesn't do anything today. The image, the way we draw the path is exactly like drawing with the pen tool in Illustrator. If you are familiar with Adobe Illustrator, this is a vector instrument that uses what's called Bezier curves in order to make a shape, or in this case, a selection, and it's very difficult to teach Bezier curves.

In fact, the best way to learn Bezier curves is to just go ahead and do them. I'm going to show you how to do it now and start with an easy area. I'm going to select this area outside her chin and her lips and inside arm here. So in order to do that, I'm going to zoom into that area and in order to zoom in, you get the Zoom tool, Zed, or Command or Ctrl spacebar, and then you just drag in the area. And now that's gone a little bit too high. To move it around, we just get the Hand tool or just hit the spacebar.

And then you can move the image around. This is very handy because at the same time, we have the Pen Tool selected, so we can use the pen tool, and then use the spacebar and then use the Zoom tool. So this is the area we want to create a path in. And a good place to start will be here. So I'm going to click once with the pen tool. Now the reason I started there is that it's a corner.

The next thing I'm going to do is click around here, and I'm going to click just right on the inside of her skin. And now I'm going to drag and as you can see, as I drag back, I create a curve and that curve goes on the inside of her skin. If it went on the outside, then you'd see a little bit of darkness, which wouldn't be a bad thing, but when you're cutting out something it's always best to go a little bit on the inside. So the next time I'm going to click is going to be here. And when I drag back, I'm not happy with the way that's going because it's going a little bit on the outside. So I'm going to go command Zed, and now I'm going to option click on that point.

And when you do that, the next bit of the Bezier curve is like starting again from scratch before, when I try to create the next bit of the Bezier curve without option clicking the Bezier curve tries to create the next curve in a sympathetic way to the previous curve. In other words, it tries to continue the direction of the previous curve. Sometimes that is helpful. Sometimes it isn't. In this case, I'm just going to start again from scratch. And I'm going to click and drag to create my next Bezier curve.

I'm nearly finished. I'm going to do the next one, it's going to be outside the image. So I'm going to go F on the keyboard and that enables us to click outside the image Hear because we want the selection to go completely outside. Otherwise, we might get some interference along this part of the image. So now I'm going to click another anchor point here, doesn't really matter where it is, as you can see, and now I'm going to follow around her hair and click there. As you can see, I've got a nice curve there and a nice curve that sympathetic to the first one there.

And that's because I didn't do option click on that anchor point, I am going to do option click on this anchor point because I'm having a change of direction. Now I'm going to click there on the sort of apex of the curve. And I'm going to keep going now because this curve is going to be very much sympathetic to the previous curve. It's come a bit short, but that's okay. I can just drag to push it out of this. I'm going to keep going.

I'm gonna option click again because I changing direction again. Got another curve there. option click again and click and I've created that path. So there is the final path. Here's the paths palette. As you can see, it's given us a work path there, we can double click there and give it a name.

I'm gonna call it chin. Okay, we'll just leave it there for the time being. In the next video, I'll show you why I created this path and show you how I turn it into a selection and then fill that selection in with a consistent, flat color in order to get rid of the distracting background. Okay, it's Rob from Rob coven.com. I'll see you in the next video.