Isolate church tower in Photoshop for 3D projects

If you want to bring the church towerto a separate layer for your 3Dproject in Photoshop, precise masking is essential. In this tutorial, I will show you how to effectively isolate the tower before it is launched into space. We will go through the process of removing the background in two steps: first, we create a rough mask, followed by refinements.

Main Takeaways

• The isolation of the church tower is done in several steps to have it on its own layer.
• Using the magic wand and brush tool is crucial for correct masking.
• Setting the tolerance correctly on the magic wand is important to ensure a clean selection.

Step-by-Step Guide

First, you need to ensure that the church tower is available as a separate object. To do this, duplicate the background layer by pressing Command + J (Mac) or Ctrl + J (Windows) and hide the new layer. I call this new layer "Tower only". Now you can see better what you are masking.

Now it's time to isolate the tower. It is preferable to use the magic wand for this. This selection tool works well when distinguishing between different tones. I recommend setting the tolerance to about 45 to achieve the best results. With the magic wand, click on the sky or background to remove the unwanted parts from your selection. Hold down the Shift key to add additional areas until only the tower is correctly selected.

After the initial selection, you might need to refine some areas. Here, the use of the brush comes into play. Reset the foreground and background colors to black and white by pressing D. Then, choose a brush with a hard edge and ensure the opacity is at 100%. You can now paint over small holes or imprecise areas in the mask with black to achieve a clean edge.

To draw straight lines, hold down the Shift key while clicking and dragging. This ensures that you work precisely. It is important to keep areas that conform to the mask cleanly separated, so that no holes appear in the church tower later.

Once you have touched up the edges everywhere with the brush, the next step is to further refine the mask. Go over the edges with a smaller brush and check the details. Pay particular attention to achieving clean transitions between the tower and the background.

Now to further refine the details, you can take a larger brush and refine the masking. You should ensure that only the church tower is isolated and everything else is removed. Patience is required here; it is a simple yet effective approach.

If everything looks good, you can activate the mask and check if the church tower looks the way you want. You have now successfully isolated the church tower, and it should be ready to launch into space.

Summary - Masking the Church Tower in Photoshop

In this guide, you have learned how to isolate the church tower using Photoshop. The main steps were duplicating the layer, using the magic wand for selection, and touch-ups with a brush tool. Be sure to work with different brush sizes to edit fine details and achieve precise masking. These skills will help you achieve great results in your future projects.