Using Photoshop channels to create cool montages

Davos with connections in sky

A client of mine was illustrating an article about the World Economic Forum whose annual meeting is usually held in scenic Davos in Switzerland. My client was keen to stress the importance of interconnectivity within both the forum and the wider business community and gave me an image of connected wires of light to marry with the snowy village shot.

To cut out the sky of this pic I adjusted one of the RGB channels. This is a specially useful technique if the area you want to cut out is clearly differentiated by the tones in the picture already – like a figure shot against a white background for example. In these situations you already have a bit of information there that can do the job for you.

Have a look at the channels and select the one which is closest to the black and white mask you want to create – it’s usually the blue channel in RGB. Copy this channel by dragging it to the ‘Create a new channel’ icon at the bottom of the Channels palette. Firstly, create a stark channel of just white and black with no greys. One way to do this is to go Image > Adjust > Threshold… but you may want to use Curves…

This will never be enough to create the cut-out mask in itself but it should be possible to create a channel that closely fits the outline you want. It’ll then be necessary to select the Brush Tool (B) to fill in the areas of white or black as desired. Black hides; white reveals.

When you are happy with the channel, simply cmd/ctrl-click on the channel in the Channels palette go to the appropriate layer in the Layers palette and click the “Add layer mask” icon at the bottom of the palette (it looks like a washing machine). The channel copy will be applied to the layer as a mask.

Using Photoshop channels to create cool montages tutorial

This article was posted on Wednesday, March 12th, 2008 at 2:43 pm and is filed under Photoshop.
You can follow any responses to this article through the RSS 2.0 feed.

Download free “How to Market Yourself Online” ebook
Discover the secrets behind building a better web presence

Everything you will need to know about self-marketing on the web, including:

Creating websites
Setting up WordPress
Writing blog posts
Getting links
Driving traffic to your site
Using social media
Offering RSS feeds and subscriptions
Getting found on Google

21 Responses to “Using Photoshop channels to create cool montages”

Brian Yerkes, on March 14th, 2008 at 2:06 am, said:

wow, that image is really cool! i need to try that for sure. Another great photoshop post on something I did not know.

Cheers Rob
Matt Saunders, on March 17th, 2008 at 5:26 pm, said:

looks pretty good. i could apply a similar technique when cutting out the product shots for my site.. hmm…
Matt, on March 18th, 2008 at 11:23 pm, said:

I just recently did almost this exact same technique with a wireframe sky over our corporate headquarters.
sohbet, on March 19th, 2008 at 2:37 pm, said:

wooooooow great i like it
Rob Cubbon, on March 23rd, 2008 at 2:57 am, said:

Thanks, guys, for your great comments!
Dallas Web Design, on March 25th, 2008 at 9:53 pm, said:

The effect in the sky is awesome. It looks like a dome overhead or very skilled fighter pilots left their trails. Either way I like it.
Rob Cubbon, on March 29th, 2008 at 4:01 pm, said:

Thank you, Dallas Web Design!
English Dutch Translation Services, on April 1st, 2008 at 11:13 pm, said:

Wow, very psychedelic Thank you for the tips!
Jonathan, on April 2nd, 2008 at 1:34 pm, said:

Brilliant!

Hey Rob, which site would you recommend me for photoshop tutorials(in between beginner to intermediate level), so that one day, I could do things with graphics like you do.

Thanks,

Jonathan
Rob Cubbon, on April 3rd, 2008 at 12:18 am, said:

I’m the wrong person to ask about that, Jonathan, as it was a while since I was at beginner stage with Photoshop. What I found useful was to literally play around with Photoshop with some of my own photos to see what could be done.

It is always a good idea to get a book or two about software you are unused to. There are probably loads of good ones out there. Just go to Amazon and read the reader comments.

And then there’s always forums and blogs on the web that can help you. If you’re stuck just Google it and you may find the answer.

But, most of all I think you can’t beat a good book!

Thanks for your comment, English Dutch Translation Services, more psychedelia to come!
Multimediedesigner, on April 13th, 2008 at 7:22 pm, said:

Damn that is a nice tutorial Rob. Looks very good.

I think I will try this later today
Rob Cubbon, on April 20th, 2008 at 12:57 pm, said:

Thank you, Multimediedesigner, I hope you got on well when you tried it out!
Multimediedesigner, on April 22nd, 2008 at 6:32 pm, said:

I did actually. Made a wallpaper for my cousin and he loved it
Thanks again Rob
Rob Cubbon, on April 28th, 2008 at 10:22 am, said:

Cool!
Ronald, on August 5th, 2008 at 3:21 am, said:

looking good.tnx for the tuts
Photoshop a flag inside a country | Freelance Graphic Designer London, on March 26th, 2009 at 5:27 pm, said:

[...] and adapting it to be a selection of only the part of the map that was Africa. Here is explained using Channels to make masks and selections on a similar [...]
Photoshop, on April 13th, 2009 at 9:05 pm, said:

Really cool and simple trick, thanks
Rob Cubbon, on May 17th, 2009 at 3:08 pm, said:

Nada, gracias
Jason, on May 27th, 2009 at 9:05 pm, said:

Simple little trick to make a cool image even cooler.
Rob Cubbon, on January 27th, 2010 at 12:14 pm, said:

Thank you, Jason
Photoshop a flag inside a country | Blog | Graphic and Web Designer London UK, on April 3rd, 2010 at 3:32 pm, said:

[...] and adapting it to be a selection of only the part of the map that was Africa. Here is explained using Channels to make masks and selections on a similar [...]

Graphic and Web Designer London UK