For any ecommerce retailer, photographer or marketing professional, knowing how to remove the groundwork from your photos is a skill you lot'll use countless times. This step-by-step tutorial will show you how to remove hair from a solid background.

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It can be incredibly frustrating to motility the background from hair if you don't empathise some of Photoshop's unique eraser tools. Trying to remove the hair from a background tin can be time consuming and end up ruining your original image if done incorrectly. In this Photoshop tutorial, you lot'll walk away knowing how to remove a background from hair with the Groundwork Eraser Tool. In one case you lot accept mastered how to remove the groundwork from hair in Photoshop 2021, you'll be able to tackle whatever photo or epitome.

Nosotros'll be using an epitome that shows y'all how to remove the groundwork from curly hair in Photoshop, but these directions will work with any type of hair.

How to remove the groundwork from hair in Photoshop

  • Prepare upwards your layers
  • Create a loftier dissimilarity layer
  • Remove the background effectually the hair and model
  • Replace the background
  • Footstep 1: Set up your layers

    Open up the prototype you desire to remove the background from in Photoshop 2021. Get to your Layers panel by selecting Window > Layers or past clicking on the Layers panel icon to the right of the screen.

    set up layers background hair

    Brand sure the locked Groundwork layer is selected (it should be selected by default). Open the Layers panel menu by clicking on the three little lines in the upper left-manus corner of the console. From the carte du jour that drops down, choose Duplicate Layer.

    Pro tip: Nosotros create a indistinguishable layer so you tin can preserve the original paradigm. This gives you lot a backup of the original in case yous make a mistake or need to start over.

    duplicate layer remove background hair

    In the pop-up box, click OK to create the Background re-create layer.

    Step 2: Create a loftier contrast layer

    Click on the plus sign at the lesser of the Layers console to create a new layer.

    high contrast layer

    In your Toolbar, doubleclick on the Foreground colour to bring upward the Colors dialog box. Using the color sliders, choose a color that'due south in loftier contrast to the background color of your original image. Since our image has a yellow background, we'll choose a bright blue.

    You want to use a brilliant, high contrast colour to piece of work with as you remove hair from the background in Photoshop so you can hands see how much of the background is really being removed as you work.

    high contrast background removal hair

    Once y'all've called your color, select your new layer and choose Edit > Make full from the dropdown menu at the pinnacle of the application window, or click SHIFT+F5 (FN+SHIFT+F5 on a Mac). In the dialog box that appears, choose Foreground color at 100%.

    foreground background hair removal

    In one case y'all've filled your new layer with the Foreground color, move that layer betwixt your Groundwork re-create and Background layers in the Layers panel. Y'all tin do this by grabbing the new layer and dragging it until it pops into identify betwixt the Background layers.

    toolbar hair background removal

    Stride three: Remove the background around the hair and model

    Select the Background Eraser Tool from the Toolbar. Information technology may be hidden backside the Eraser Tool.

    background eraser tool hair

    Next, select the Groundwork Color from the Toolbar and select the prototype'southward groundwork colour using the Color Picker in the pop up dialog box.

    color picker background hair removal

    With the Background Eraser Tool selected, you'll notice three trivial buttons in the Options Bar at the top of the application window next to the castor size. These determine how the background will be sampled: Contiguous, Once, or using a Groundwork Swatch. Since the original epitome has a solid groundwork, cull the third selection: Background Swatch.

    Make sure Discontiguous and Protect Foreground Colour are selected. These settings ensure the height layer will remain separate from the bright blue background layer equally you lot edit and remove pilus from the background in Photoshop.

    settings remove background from hair

    Yous'll also see two other options in this Options Bar: the Castor Preset (set to 13 in the prototype higher up) and Tolerance. Brainstorm with a castor size that makes sense for the image yous are working with, and start with Tolerance set up to l%.

    Go dorsum into your Layers panel and make sure your summit layer, Background copy, is selected.

    background copy removal from hair

    Now, with your Groundwork Eraser Tool, begin erasing the expanse effectually the hair.

    background eraser tool hair

    As y'all work, you may need to adjust the Tolerance level up or down depending on the colors in the foreground image. For case, in that location are a lot of yellowish tones in the model's skin which could be accidentally erased using a high Tolerance level; therefore, we'll reduce the Tolerance downwardly to nigh twenty% while working around the face up and hands. Y'all may likewise find it's helpful to reduce the brush size when working in these areas also and then you take more precision over the areas beingness removed.

    Continue erasing until you have an "outline" effectually your entire subject.

    result background eraser tool hair

    Once you've erased the surface area immediately effectually your bailiwick, you tin can increase your castor size and your Tolerance and remove the residue of the background.

    background removal from image with hair

    Step 4: Supercede the groundwork

    Become back into your Layers panel and hibernate the bright colour layer and the original Background layer by clicking on the Eye icon next to each layer.

    replace background

    Y'all now have a transparent background, and you tin can insert any background yous wish into the image. Or you lot tin can copy this prototype and paste it into another paradigm.

    Now that you've learned how to remove the background from hair in Photoshop, y'all can substitute your original backgrounds with your individual brand colors or with more complex backgrounds, adding interest and continuity to your ecommerce photography.

    remove background from hair

    Chief more Photoshop skills

    You lot tin improve your photo-editing skills with our library of Photoshop tutorials that volition assistance you lot create perfectly edited images to promote your products. Scan some of our most pop Photoshop tutorials:

    • How to Alter the Background Color of a Film
    • How to Make Someone Smile in Photoshop: A Tutorial for Brands
    • Blur the Background in Photoshop: A Tutorial for Your Product Photos

    Quit fumbling with Photoshop and outsource your most ho-hum edits to Path, your virtual photo-editing studio

    FAQs about removing background from hair in Photoshop

    How exercise I remove groundwork from hair in Photoshop?

    Yous remove the background from hair in Photoshop using the steps in this post:

    1. Set upwardly your layers
    2. Create a high contrast layer
    3. Remove the background around the hair and model
    4. Replace the groundwork

    How tin I alter my pilus background?

    You can change your hair groundwork by following the steps in this tutorial to remove the background. Then choose a new background color or paradigm to supercede it with, or leave it as a transparent background.

    How do I remove green screen from pilus in Photoshop?

    If you need to know how to fix pilus that is in front of a green screen, you can use a similar method equally described above, with simply a few extra steps. Beginning, set upwardly your layers and use the Groundwork Eraser Tool, this time with a blood-red groundwork.

    green screen from hair

    Considering green screens are very bright, a greenish hue often ends up in the hair. To annul this, you can increase the tolerance of the Background Eraser Tool as yous erase around just the edges of the hair. If that does non work to your satisfaction, subsequently erasing as much equally you tin can, create a crude pick around the areas in the photograph where y'all run into the color green.

    Then, choose Select > Color Range from the application drop-downwardly menu to capture only the dark-green pixels within your rough pick. You so can use whatever colour adjustment tool you prefer (such every bit Hue/Saturation or Colour Residuum) to fine-melody the colors in that pick.

    Becky Kilimnik

    Bio: With over eighteen years experience equally a graphic designer, Becky is passionate nearly helping people enhance their content by mastering image manipulation software. Becky has worked with a variety of educational publishers in the U.S. and U.K. and has taught pattern at six universities.