Hi, My question touches on both Photoshop and Bryce but since so many people use Photoshop anyway, I decided to try my luck here first.

My aim is render Bryce trees, and then move them in my Mojoworld images for post-work. First thought is to simply render against an odd colored backgound and then in Photoshop, extract that color. Well, the problem is that close and around the tree, the background gets fuzzy and it's hard to make a clean job without loosing details on the tree.

I then decided to do 2 renders, one normal, and the other one rendering masking the object... This provides a clean shape in pure black and white.

Now here is my question... What do I do with those 2 pics? I know it got to be some sort of masking operation in Photoshop but I just cant figure it out. I want to have in the end, a clean tree without loss of details against a tranparent background.

Thanks in advance for your help.

You could paste the mask render onto a transparent background and remove the background from the mask. Then place the tree image on a transparent background and paste the mask on top. All you have to do is erase the surrounding area from the tree image using the mask as a guide. You can select the tree image background to be erased by selecting it in the layers menu popup. After you've done all that you delete the mask layer......TaDa.....you have a tree on a transparent background. 8) Catlin

In Photoshop open both, the normal and the mask together with your image from Mojoworld. Select one of you renders and Ctrl. + A to select all then copy to clipboard memory then select and paste into your Mojoworld image. It will come in as another layer. Now do the same with the other image. Now in the layer that contains the mask you can do one of several things; using the wand tool, pixels set at 32, click in the black then invert selection to select only the white and save that in the channels palette as a selection for future use. Or you can make white your foreground color and in the select menu use the color range tool to isolate the whites, click OK now save this as before in the channels palette as a selection. If you have Photoshop 7 you can use the extract filter to extract the tree but this tends to be a bit more time consuming as is using the pen tool to first create a path then a selection. Now that you have your selection saved in the channel palette, you can highlight the tree render layer in the layers palette and Ctrl. + click in the saved selection layer in the channel palette to select the tree object. Once your tree rendition is selected you can now copy to clipboard memory and paste right into a new layer the tree all by itself. You may have to fiddle a little with the selection in the layers menu to defringe or remove white matte. Also, remember to clear your selections often otherwise you may have some strange things happening.

I should add that there is probably an easier way to do this but that's what I'd do 'cos I almost always do things back to front. 8) Catlin

If you simply want the object mask as a selection you can also paste the mask render in the alpha channel of the color image. Select > load selection > Alpha 1 or something like that and you have your selection. Johannes

"AlWAYS" use a Totally Black (0,0,0) Background for use with Masks(In your Sky Library there is a totally black background),That way there will be no fuzziness...Use the Mask option in Bryce to render your Trees... Why not do it the other way around?I do it all of the time,Bring your Mojoworld image as a background applied to a 2d square/Plane and then build your scene around your image?I understand that you really want to do it the other way around and all but you wont be able to get the realistic Shadows doing it your way unless you want to spend hours doing it in Photoshop? BTW..I am in the process of Modeling Trees for Mojoworld and as soon as I get enough time I will finish the Models(Tooooo many projects going at once...Dought!)I have been told about the Poly count used in Mojoworld and I am trying a work around and I am almost positive it will work..We will see...I hope you find your answer....

Thanks all, I will try the pitch black solution and the Bryce scene building also to see what works best for me. Thanks all for your help. :-)

Hey thanks guys! I am rather a "newbie" when it comes to mask rendering and PhotoShop compositing so I really appreciate the wealth of information here. I assembled a notepad document using the old "copy and paste" and I will refer to it the next time I try this. I was sure to copy your names with your suggestions and advice so as to give correct attributions. Thanks again. :-)