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Photoshop
Photoshop's AI-powered Select Subject / Remove Background tool gives one-click subject isolation whose resulting selection can be chained directly into fill layers, gradients, and adjustment layers, letting an editor swap backgrounds, relight or color-grade a subject, add a glow, and recolor clothing without manually building masks.
Select Subject and Remove Background both use cloud-based AI to isolate a subject and automatically build a layer mask.
Remove Background instantly produces a transparent background by combining subject selection with a layer mask in one click.
A white halo/fringe around a cutout subject comes from the original background bleeding into edge pixels, fixed via the Select and Mask dialog's Shift Edge slider by contracting the selection edge.
The Refine Edge Brush Tool recalculates the mask in real time as you paint over detailed edges like hair, stripping remaining background fringing.
A Solid Color fill layer dragged beneath the subject creates an instant, freely re-editable background color (via hue/saturation or eyedropper).
The Gradient tool's 'Gradient' mode (versus 'Classic Gradient') keeps a drawn gradient's stops and colors editable after the fact; linear or radial shapes give different background effects.
Once a subject selection is active, adding a new adjustment layer (Brightness/Contrast, or the new Color and Vibrance layer) automatically loads that selection into the adjustment layer's mask, targeting the edit to just the subject.
A new 'Color and Vibrance' adjustment layer (shown in Photoshop beta at recording time) combines temperature, tint, vibrance, and saturation in one panel.
A foreground-to-transparent radial gradient combined with an active subject selection (auto-loaded as mask) and then an inverted mask produces a colored glow that appears only behind the subject.
Switching the glow layer's blend mode from Normal to Linear Dodge makes the glow color interact with the background instead of sitting flat on top.
The Selection Brush Tool's Subtract mode can remove parts of an AI selection (e.g., a subject's face and hands) so a downstream adjustment only affects the intended area (e.g., clothing).
The Hue/Saturation adjustment layer's eyedropper can target a specific color range (e.g., yellows) and shift only that range's hue to recolor an item of clothing.
The contextual taskbar and Adjustments panel (both enabled via the Window menu) are the primary entry points for triggering Select Subject and adjustment layers throughout the workflow.
Select Subject — A Photoshop AI tool in the contextual taskbar (or Select menu) that uses cloud-based AI to automatically select the main subject of an image in one click. Apply: Click 'Select subject' in the contextual taskbar to generate an active selection of your subject before applying a fill, gradient, or adjustment layer.
Remove Background — A one-click Photoshop AI command that selects the subject and simultaneously creates a layer mask, producing a transparent background. Apply: Click 'Remove background' in the contextual taskbar to instantly cut a subject onto a transparent background without a separate select-then-mask step.
Select and Mask — A dedicated Photoshop workspace, opened from the Properties panel or Select > Select and Mask, for refining a selection or mask's edges. Apply: Double-click a layer mask (or use Select > Select and Mask) to open the dialog and fine-tune edge quality before finalizing a composite.
Shift Edge (Global Refinements) — A slider inside Select and Mask's Global Refinements panel that contracts or expands the selection edge. Apply: Drag Shift Edge left to contract the selection inward and remove background halos/fringing, or right to extend it outward.
Refine Edge Brush Tool — A brush inside Select and Mask that recalculates the mask in real time as you paint over detailed edges like hair. Apply: Paint the Refine Edge Brush directly over fringed hair or edge areas to strip out remaining background pixels caught in the selection.
Solid Color Fill Layer — A non-destructive Photoshop layer, added via Layer > New Fill Layer > Solid Color, that fills with a single editable color. Apply: Add a Solid Color fill layer, drag it beneath the subject layer in the Layers panel, and double-click its thumbnail anytime to change the background color, hue, or saturation.
Gradient Tool (Gradient mode vs Classic Gradient) — Photoshop's gradient tool, with a newer 'Gradient' mode (as opposed to 'Classic Gradient') that keeps gradient stops live-editable after being drawn. Apply: Select 'Gradient' rather than 'Classic Gradient' in the tool options so you can revisit and change gradient colors and stops after drawing them.
Linear / Radial Gradient shapes — Shape options for how a gradient is drawn — linear (a straight line) or radial (circular, from a center point). Apply: Use Linear Gradient for a straight background transition or Radial Gradient (e.g., yellow-to-orange) for a centered glow-like background effect.
Foreground to Transparent Gradient — A gradient preset that fades from the current foreground color to full transparency. Apply: Set the foreground color, choose the Foreground to Transparent gradient with a Radial shape, and drag it out to build a colored glow that fades to nothing.
Invert Mask — A command (Ctrl/Cmd+I, or the Invert Mask menu item) that flips a layer mask's black-and-white values. Apply: After a subject selection auto-loads into a gradient layer's mask, invert the mask so the gradient shows behind the subject instead of only within it.
Blend Modes (e.g., Linear Dodge) — Layer blending options that control how a layer's pixels combine with the layers beneath it. Apply: Change a glow/gradient layer's blend mode from Normal to Linear Dodge so its color interacts with and brightens the background instead of sitting flatly on top.
Brightness/Contrast Adjustment Layer — A non-destructive adjustment layer that raises or lowers an image region's brightness and contrast. Apply: With the subject selected via Select Subject, add a Brightness/Contrast adjustment layer so the selection auto-loads as the mask, brightening only the subject.
Color and Vibrance Adjustment Layer — A new adjustment layer, shown in Photoshop beta at recording time, combining color temperature, tint, vibrance, and saturation controls. Apply: With a fresh Select Subject selection active, add the Color and Vibrance layer to warm up and boost the vibrance of just the subject.
Selection Brush Tool (Subtract mode) — A brush-based selection tool, shown as a pink overlay, that can add to or subtract from an existing selection. Apply: Switch the Selection Brush Tool to Subtract mode and paint over areas like the face or hands to exclude them from an AI-generated subject selection before applying a targeted adjustment.
Hue/Saturation Adjustment Layer (eyedropper targeting) — An adjustment layer that shifts the hue, saturation, and lightness of a targeted color range, refined via an eyedropper. Apply: Add a Hue/Saturation layer with the mask pre-loaded from your refined selection, pick the Yellows channel, eyedropper-sample the exact clothing color, then drag the Hue slider to recolor it (e.g., yellow shirt to red or orange).
Contextual Taskbar / Adjustments Panel — UI panels — the contextual taskbar surfaces quick actions like Select Subject and Remove Background, while the Adjustments panel surfaces adjustment-layer shortcuts. Apply: Enable both via Window > Contextual Taskbar and Window > Adjustments if not visible, then use them as the fast entry points for AI selection and non-destructive adjustment layers throughout the workflow.
The halo around a cutout subject is diagnosed as coming from the original photo's background color bleeding into edge pixels, not from a bad AI selection — so the fix is edge-contraction (Shift Edge), not reselecting.
Because an active subject selection persists across actions, creating a new fill or adjustment layer immediately after Select Subject auto-populates that layer's mask — collapsing 'select' and 'mask' into a single step.
The demoed Color and Vibrance adjustment layer is explicitly flagged as unreleased at recording time ('I'm in Photoshop beta recording this, but by the time we release this, it's going to be in the full build of Photoshop'), so viewers on stable Photoshop may not yet have it.
Inverting the mask is the pivotal step that converts a gradient constrained to the subject's shape into a glow that appears only behind the subject.
Changing the glow layer's blend mode to Linear Dodge is presented as a stylistic upgrade over Normal blend mode because it lets the glow color interact with underlying background tones rather than sit as a flat overlay.
The video's own framing implicitly separates the single AI step (Select Subject) from everything downstream (fill layers, gradients, adjustment layers, blend modes), which is exactly what one audience comment calls out: the AI does the selection, the rest is 'pure photoshop.'
«select subject using AI. You're going to learn how to instantly isolate people, objects, or products with a single click, as well as how to refine the edges to make sure they blend into your new backgrounds perfectly.»
— 00:08
«select subject. This is going to use cloud-based AI to select our subject.»
— 00:46
«here in our select and mask dialogue, really what we want to do is contract that selection just a little bit.»
— 02:08
«go ahead and grab your refine edge brush tool and simply paint on those areas of the hair, you're going to see I'm going to get a real time calculation when I do that.»
— 02:39
«And the selection that we had from select subject is automatically loaded into the layer mask.»
— 06:02
«going to use the brand new, by the way, I'm in Photoshop beta recording this, but by the time we release this, it's going to be in the full build of Photoshop. The brand new color and vibrance adjustment layer where you can adjust your color temperature, tint, vibrance, and saturation.»
— 06:26
«what we're going to do is use this selection and load in a hue saturation adjustment.»
— 09:57
«looks great. Let's start off with a red jacket or a orange jacket. Really, whatever you want to. We simply targeted that color and changed it to whatever we want.»
— 10:40
Reception
Overwhelmingly positive reception praising the clear, easy-to-follow teaching method and practical value of the tutorial.
A practical, well-scoped tutorial that uses one core AI feature (Select Subject / Remove Background) as the entry point into a chain of standard Photoshop compositing techniques — fill layers, gradients, blend modes, and adjustment layers — making it a useful reference for background replacement and selective color/tone edits even though most of the demonstrated workflow is conventional Photoshop rather than AI itself.
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