Using Photoshop channels to create cool montages
March 12, 2008 – 2:43 pm
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.





14 Responses to “Using Photoshop channels to create cool montages”
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
By Brian Yerkes on Mar 14, 2008
looks pretty good. i could apply a similar technique when cutting out the product shots for my site.. hmm…
By Matt Saunders on Mar 17, 2008
I just recently did almost this exact same technique with a wireframe sky over our corporate headquarters.
By Matt on Mar 18, 2008
wooooooow great i like it
By sohbet on Mar 19, 2008
Thanks, guys, for your great comments!
By Rob Cubbon on Mar 23, 2008
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.
By Dallas Web Design on Mar 25, 2008
By Rob Cubbon on Mar 29, 2008
Wow, very psychedelic
Thank you for the tips!
By English Dutch Translation Services on Apr 1, 2008
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
bhutan web host
By Jonathan on Apr 2, 2008
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!
By Rob Cubbon on Apr 3, 2008
Damn that is a nice tutorial Rob. Looks very good.
I think I will try this later today
By Multimediedesigner on Apr 13, 2008
Thank you, Multimediedesigner, I hope you got on well when you tried it out!
By Rob Cubbon on Apr 20, 2008
I did actually. Made a wallpaper for my cousin and he loved it

Thanks again Rob
By Multimediedesigner on Apr 22, 2008
Cool!
By Rob Cubbon on Apr 28, 2008