What to Do After Select Subject in Photoshop – Day 5

Select Subject Is a One-Click Cutout, and Then a Reusable Selection

Cutting a person out of a photograph used to be the test of whether you could really use Photoshop. Pen tool round the body, channels for the hair, an hour of refinement, and it still looked slightly wrong against the new background.

Select Subject does the isolation in a click. What’s less obvious — and considerably more useful — is that the same selection can be loaded into any adjustment layer afterwards. Once Photoshop knows where your subject is, brightening only them, glowing only behind them, or recoloring only their clothing all become two-click operations.

The Cutout Is Only Half of It

It Creates a Mask, Not a Deletion

Remove Background hides the background behind a layer mask rather than erasing pixels. Everything stays recoverable, and the mask stays editable.

Adjustments Inherit the Selection

Run Select Subject, then click an adjustment in the Adjustments panel, and that selection loads straight into the adjustment’s mask. This is the trick that makes the rest of this tutorial fast.

The Edges Still Need You

The AI gets the shape right. Halos from the old background, and the fine detail in hair, still want a minute of attention — and that minute is what separates a convincing cutout from an obvious one.

Isolate the Subject and Clean the Edge

1. Click Remove Background

   In the Contextual Task Bar. Photoshop selects your subject and builds the layer mask in one action.

2. Double-Click the Mask and Open Select and Mask

   This is the workspace where the edge actually gets fixed, and most people never open it.

3. Pull Shift Edge Slightly Inward

   Under Global Refinements. Contracting the selection a little removes the pale halo left by the original background — the single most common tell that a cutout is a cutout. A small negative value is usually enough.

4. Paint the Hair With the Refine Edge Brush

   Grab the Refine Edge Brush and paint over the complicated edges. It works out which strands are subject and which are background and removes the fringing automatically. This is the part that used to be channel work.

Put In a New Background

5. Add a Solid Color Fill Layer

   Layer > New Fill Layer > Solid Color, then drag it below your subject in the Layers panel. Being a fill layer, the color stays editable by double-clicking the thumbnail.

   

6. Or Draw a Gradient Instead

   The Gradient Tool (G) set to Radial, drawn on a layer beneath the subject. A radial gradient behind a person reads as a light source, which is why it looks better than a flat color for portraits.

   

7. Adjust It With Blend Modes and Position

   Changing the gradient layer’s blend mode, or dragging its center around, changes the whole feel without redrawing anything.

Use the Selection Again to Enhance the Subject

8. Run Select Subject, Then Click Brightness/Contrast

   The selection loads into the adjustment’s mask automatically. Now brightness and contrast apply only to the person, leaving the background exactly as it was — the fastest way to make a subject sit forward.

   

9. Add a Glow Behind Them by Inverting the Mask

   Select the subject again, draw a radial gradient, then click the gradient’s layer mask and press Cmd/Ctrl + I to invert it. The glow now falls everywhere except the subject — behind them rather than over them.

   

Change the Color of Their Clothing

10. Select Subject, Then Subtract What You Don’t Want

    Grab the Selection Brush Tool in Subtract mode and paint away the skin and hands, leaving only the clothing selected. Starting from the whole subject and removing is much faster than selecting a garment from scratch.

11. Click Hue/Saturation in the Adjustments Panel

    The clothing-only selection becomes the adjustment’s mask.

12. Target the Color Range, Then Move the Hue

    In the Properties panel, switch from Master to the actual color of the garment — Yellows, say — and then drag Hue. Targeting the range rather than working on Master keeps the shift clean and stops it bleeding into anything with a similar tone.

What to Watch Out For

Skipping Select and Mask

The default cutout is good, not finished. Two minutes on Shift Edge and the Refine Edge Brush is the difference people actually notice.

Contracting the Edge Too Far

Overdo Shift Edge and you eat into the subject, which looks worse than the halo did. Small values.

Re-Selecting Manually When You Don’t Need To

Select Subject then an adjustment gives you a masked adjustment instantly. Painting that mask by hand is work you don’t have to do.

Using Master in Hue/Saturation

It shifts every color in the selection. Pick the specific range you’re changing.

Selection as a Starting Point, Not an End

The instinct with Select Subject is to use it once, get the cutout, and move on. The more useful habit is to treat it as a switch you can flip whenever you want an adjustment to affect the person and not the scene — or, inverted, the scene and not the person.

Almost every local adjustment in a portrait falls into one of those two categories. Which means a tool that sounds like it’s about background removal is really about being able to work on half of a photograph at a time, without ever drawing a mask.

Cut One Out, Then Keep Going

Click Remove Background, open Select and Mask, contract Shift Edge slightly, paint the hair with the Refine Edge Brush, drop a radial gradient underneath, then run Select Subject again and click Brightness/Contrast. Download the four free sample images and work through all of it — then use the same selection for a glow and a clothing color change, which is where the tool stops being a cutout. For selections and compositing done by hand, our PRO Photoshop Learning Path is where to go next.

Quick Reference: Keys, Menus and Settings

• Cut out the subjectContextual Task Bar > Remove Background
• Fix the edgeDouble-click the mask > Select and Mask; Global Refinements > Shift Edge slightly left; Refine Edge Brush on the hair
• New backgroundLayer > New Fill Layer > Solid Color, or G for a Radial gradient, below the subject
• Brighten the subjectSelect Subject, then Adjustments panel > Brightness/Contrast
• Glow behind themSelect Subject, drag a radial gradient, click its mask and press Cmd/Ctrl + I
• Recolor clothingSelection Brush in Subtract mode over face and hands, then Hue/Saturation > Yellows > Hue