How to - Retouch Fotos / make better pics

[cowabounga]

Hey Skywalker!
Thanks for showing all this.
I've just tried masking. I didn't have a picture with a green background. Instead I choose to outline the red horns on top the helmet of a knight standing in front of a black steck castle wall.
It worked perfectly though selecting the colours in the background was a bit tricky (because there were several shades of grey). Why do you say "invert selection" before we make the soft edges?
After that I used the outline option just to see what remained of the background, and the pictures was full or red spots! The remnants of the castle wall, all outline in red! So I re-selected the horns, copied them and pasted them. I now have the horns nicely outlined, but a small part of hte helmet still shows on the pic. Shall I make another mask? Is it really worth compared to just use the eraser?
Eager for your answer.
Arnaud

[Skywalker]

hi cowabounga: the greenscreen technic works best with a background that is one colour and this colour should not be in the part of the pic that you want to keep. if you have different shades of grey it will also pick parts from the helmet for example. the red spots come from your masking modus. try another in the fly menu of the colour range selection.

i would recommend the pen tool the make a mask around your knight or get a green or white thick paper and try the greenscreen effect.

Why do you say "invert selection" before we make the soft edges?

when you do a selection and want to get rid of the part you don´t need you have to delete it. as i didn´t want to erase the part that is inside my selection / i wanted the outside ( greenscreen ) to delete - i had to invert the mask

[tonguello]

just one aditional tip.
As René had said, for the greenscreen technic, lighting is very important. That means that the green background have to be equally iluminated in all its extent and shadow-less. Otherwise when picking the color you might find you have several greens and the masking won't work. 

right? 

[Skywalker]

exactly