How To Remove a GREEN SCREEN in Photoshop!

In this easy-to-follow tutorial, you’ll learn how to remove a green screen in Photoshop in just a few steps!

Color Range To Select The Green Screen

With a Green Screen background, an older tool works better for this scenario than using the new A.I. enabled Remove Background button. 

Choose Select > Color Range and use the Eyedropper tool to target the green background and select it. Hold the Shift key as you click-and-drag over the areas to add more color pixels into the selection.

Then, check the box for Invert to apply the selection to your subject and not on the background.

For a quick preview of the selection, toggle the Image option and select the type of Selection Preview from None to either Grayscale, Black Matte, White Matte, or Quick Mask.

Create a Mask Based on The Selection

Click on the New Layer Mask icon to create a Layer Mask out of the selection.

To start fine-tuning the Mask, applying a Solid Color fill layer might help you better see the adjustments you will be applying.

Adjust the Mask Edges with Select and Mask

Select the Layer Mask thumbnail and on the Properties panel, click on the Select and Mask button to access its workspace.

Use the Global Refinements sliders to fine-tune the edge and get rid of the fringing. The Smooth slider can smoothen the jagged edges, and the Contrast slider sharpens them. 

Meanwhile, the Shift Edge slider contracts or expands the selection edge.

Then, press OK to apply the changes to your Layer Mask.

Paint on the Mask to Hide Imperfections

With the Brush tool, you can adjust your Layer Mask by painting with white (#ffffff) to reveal or black (#000000) to hide.

Use The Minimum Filter to Remove Edge Halos 

Choose Filter > Other > Minimum to contract the mask. This will help you remove edge halos/fringing. The larger the radius the more you will contract the mask.

Set the Preserve to Roundness for human subjects, and you can use the Squareness later on for non-living objects such as buildings or cars.

Use The Select and Mask Workspace to Refine the Hair

Return to the Select and Mask workspace and access the Refine Edge tool from the Toolbar.

Paint over the hair to refine the hair’s edges and further remove the green screen’s remnants between the hair strands.

If you have Photoshop 2021 or newer,, you can click on the Refine Hair button on the Options bar, which is an automatic way of doing this process. Adobe Seinse, the A.I. inside of Photoshop, will find the hair and automatically paint it.

Then, press OK to save the changes and exit the workspace.

Use The Hue/Sat Adjustment to Remove the Green Glow

Create a Hue/Saturation adjustment layer to change the remaining green pixels’ hue into something less noticeable. 

Clip the Hue/Saturation adjustment layer to the Model layer to only affect it and not the other layers.

From the Master drop-down, select Greens.

Use the Saturation slider to desaturate the greens or expand the color slider’s coverage of the selected color.

Bring back the Saturation to 0 and adjust the Hue slider to change the green hue into a color that matches the hair.

You may disable the Color fill layer to focus on repainting the flyaway hair strands.

Select the Layer Mask and use the Brush tool to paint with white (#ffffff) to reveal areas that Photoshop washed out with white.

Paint In The Flyaway Hair

Create a New Layer and rename it to, “Hair.”

Then, press Ctrl Alt G (Windows) or Command Option G (macOS) to clip it to the layer below. 

With the Brush tool selected, hold Alt (Windows) or Option (macOS) to temporarily enable the Eyedropper tool and sample the subject’s hair color.

Start painting over the masked edge to paint back the flyaway hairs.