AI background removal gets you most of the way to a clean cutout, but fur, hair, and fine edges demand hands-on refinement. This tutorial by Jesús Ramirez walks through a complete compositing workflow — building a custom fur brush, refining a layer mask, harmonizing lighting with generative AI, and applying non-destructive sharpening — to make a placed subject look like it was photographed in the scene.
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Video by Adobe Photoshop. Any links or downloads mentioned by the creator are available only on YouTube
Practical Tips
These techniques from the tutorial will help you move beyond basic cutouts and build composites that hold up at full resolution.
- After using AI to remove a background, contract the mask slightly with Filter > Other > Minimum before painting edges — this gives you clean canvas to work with instead of blurry leftover fringe.
- Build a custom fur brush using Shape Dynamics and Scattering, then set the Angle Jitter control to Direction so each stroke follows the natural growth path of the coat.
- Use the Harmonize tool to match lighting and color, then duplicate the generated layer and mask between variations to combine the best shadow and subject results from each.
- Convert harmonized layers into a Smart Object before applying Camera Raw sharpening — this keeps the effect non-destructive and lets you mask it off the background with a brush.
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