Example 1:
Simple Background Replacement

Let’s start with a straightforward example—a bird photo. The original background is dull and shot in low light, resulting in a noisy image. Here’s the step-by-step process to enhance and replace the background:

1. Noise Reduction and Sharpening: First, the photo includes a lot of noise and is a little out of focus. So, I used NoNoise AI and Tack Sharp AI to remove the noise and restore the details.

2. Brightness Adjustment: Next, I brightened the image using the “Tone and Color” adjustments, increasing the exposure by about a stop and adjusting the blacks to enhance contrast.

3. Adding a New Background: I selected a new background from the ON1 Extras, specifically a bokeh image, and used the “Transform” tool to fit it perfectly behind the bird.

4. Masking the Old Background: Using the Quick Mask AI tool, I clicked on the bird to keep it and removed the old background. The result was a clean separation, allowing the new background to shine.

5. Final Adjustments: Finally, I adjusted the background’s tone and color to complement the bird’s colors, creating a harmonious and vibrant image.

Example 2:
Intermediate Background Replacement with Blending

I worked with a studio shot against a neutral backdrop for a more complex scenario. 

Here’s the approach:

1. Initial Adjustments: I cropped out unwanted elements, like a soft box in the corner.

2. Layering a New Background: I added a new studio backdrop, flipped it to match the lighting, and scaled it to fit.

3. Blending Backgrounds: Using Quick Mask AI, I masked out the original background but retained the shadows and the floor’s shape by reducing the mask’s opacity. This blended the new backdrop seamlessly with the original, maintaining a realistic look.

4. Color Adjustments: I tinted the new background using a photo filter to match the subject’s shorts, ensuring a cohesive color scheme.

5. Edge Refinement: I used the Chisel tool and Refine brush to clean up any remaining halos or edges, particularly around hair, for a polished finish.

Example 3:
Advanced Background Replacement with Color Corrections

The third example involves a challenging shot with a bright blue background that reflects onto the subject’s metallic necklace and skin. 

Here’s how I tackled it:

1. Exposure Adjustment: I lowered the exposure to correct the image’s brightness.

2. New Background Addition: I selected a new background and used the Transform tool to scale and position it.

3. Masking and Cleaning Up: Quick Mask AI helped remove the old background. However, blue reflections remained on the subject, requiring further refinements.

4. Local Color Adjustments: I used local adjustments to desaturate the necklace’s blue reflections and repainted the skin edges with a flesh color using the paint with color option. This corrected the color cast without altering the luminosity.

5. Final Touches: The result was a natural-looking edge with the correct colors, eliminating unnatural blue hues.

Conclusion

These examples highlight the incredible versatility and power of the Quick Mask AI tool in ON1 Photo RAW 2024.5. Whether dealing with simple or complex scenarios, this tool makes background replacements and composites much easier.

About ON1 Photo RAW

Elevate your photo editing game with a 30-day free trial of ON1 Photo RAW—no credit card required. Perfect for photographers of all skill levels, ON1 Photo RAW offers an intuitive yet powerful platform that blends speed, versatility, and quality into one AI-powered application. It’s the ultimate AI photo editor and includes everything a photographer needs in one application. Try ON1 Photo RAW for free and experience why it’s the top Lightroom Alternative, giving you the ultimate control to bring your photographic visions to life.

The post Easily Replace Backgrounds in Photos with ON1 by Dan Harlacher appeared first on Lightroom Killer Tips.

We kick this just-baked week off with a look at how to change a simple setting so you can import in the background while you’re working on something else. (of course, you won’t always want to do this, but when you, this is well worth knowing). Here’s how it’s done:

SCENARIO: Let’s say you’re working on sorting some files in the Library module. Maybe you’re cleaning up your catalog, and combining other catalogs and images all into one single catalog (which is an awesome idea by the way – good on ya!), and you want to import some images, either from a memory card or maybe they’re already on an external hard drive, and you want to bring them into Lightroom. So far, so good, right?

Well, as soon as you hit the Import button in the Import window, and those images start coming in, of course, Lightroom takes you to a screen displaying those images as they appear (as shown here, where I’m importing a folder full of different travel photos). So, it interrupted what you were doing, so show these images coming in, and that’s probably normally what we want to do, right — see the photos we’re importing now, ya know…unless we don’t. We could, instead keep right on working on our images, and just have them all import, and create all their previews and stuff in the background while we continue to work on what we were working on. You’re just one setting away.

STEP ONE: Go under Lightroom’s Preferences; click on the General Tab, and turn OFF the checkbox for ‘Select the “Current/Previous Import” collection during import’ checkbox (as shown here).

Above: Now in that same scenario; it doesn’t switch to show the images that are importing — they continue to import in the background (shown circled here in red) and you can continue to work on what you were working on uninterrupted (as seen here).

STEP TWO: When you’re finished working in that collection, and you want to go and see the images you imported in the background, click and hold on the name of the currently selected file down at the top left side of the Filmstrip and from the pop-up menu that appears choose “Previous Import” (as shown here).

Hope you found that helpful.

I’m off to Indianapolis today for my Lightroom seminar there tomorrow.
A big thanks to all the photographers who came out to my Minneapolis seminar on Friday — nearly 300 strong! (including eight or nine folks from Adobe’s own Lightroom team, who are based right there in Minneapolis). Great crowd – really friendly and fun.

Also, I did get to meet directly with some of the Adobe folks while I was there and I carried your banner, sharing many of the thoughts, feature requests, and suggestions that you guys post here on the blog, or email me about, or hit me up on Twitter or FB about. They were very open and receptive, and I think it’s going to be a great year for Lightroom users everywhere.

Here’s to a heck of great Monday!

Best,

-Scott

The post Importing In The Background (While You Work On Other Stuff) appeared first on Lightroom Killer Tips.

I know we’ve shared this one here before, but not everybody stops by every day (which is a darn shame I might add), but I saw that my in-house book editor Kim Doty shared this tip from the “Killer Tips” section of my Lightroom book on her Facebook page (by the way you should totally follow Kim on Facebook – she’s always doing cool giveaways and sharing tips and images and stuff – here’ the link to her page).

Anyway, this tip Kim shared was a shortcut for changing the background color of the area surrounding your images in Lightroom. Just right-click anywhere in the area surrounding your image and a pop-up menu appears (as seen below), and you can choose your new background color and/or add a pinstripe texture. Short, sweet, and to the point!

Since we’re so blatantly talking about our books, what the heck, let’s share Peter’s trailer for the book (below), so you hear it from him himself (like that “him himself” part? I hope Kim doesn’t see this, because as an Editor she would shoot me).

OK gang, I’m off to London!
I’m teaching my photography seminar there on Tuesday, and if you’re in the UK and you’re not one of the 300 or so photographers coming out to spend the day with me (and Brad), why the heck not? Come on out – you’ll learn a lot. I hope to see you there on Tuesday!

Cheers,

-Scott

The post Lightroom Quick Tip: Changing Your Background Color appeared first on Lightroom Killer Tips.