masking hair

[NZKipper]

Hi Damien,

I am cutting a portrait out of it's background and I looked at your 'replacing a background behind hair' article but the hair in my image is light grey and the background is blackish.  Is there another method I can use (the hair is super wispy as well).

[Damien Symonds]

I'm good, but I'm not psychic.  I'll need to see the photo.

[NZKipper]

I spent the last hour trying to follow the above method and using a white background instead of a sky but I couldn't get the halo to go away and I just deleted my efforts.  Here is the photo (after raw processing).  

[Damien Symonds]

Ta.

And what background are you putting in there instead?

[NZKipper]

This is my cut out image so actually this method probably wouldn't work anyway right....  with cut outs, I select them and then mask around the hair but the hair is so wispy I just can't get what's left to look natural.  After selection I save to png which gives my clients their cut out.

[Damien Symonds]

No, hang on.  You posted to ask me about my "replace background" tutorial, but now it seems like you're saying you won't be replacing the background at all?

[NZKipper]

Yes sorry, my bad.  I realised somewhere along my last comment (ie after you mentioned which background I was going to use - that actually I'm not going to use one).  I just need to select the guy and his wispy hair and remove the background.  Sorry for not being specific.

[NZKipper]

my question should have been specifically, 'what method should I use to select and mask the subject and his hair and then to remove the background'?

[Damien Symonds]

Sorry, I don't have a technique for that   You'll just have to do your best with Photoshop's stupid "Select and Mask" feature.

[NZKipper]

ok thanks anyway.