Super-imposing a muzzle flare with black background

Thuck_Fat

So my friend needs me to photoshop a muzzle flare (gunshot flash) into a photo for him. So I used google and got this picture to use:



So my question is: can I use a simple method to replace the black background with transparent pixels? I have a fairly good knowledge of photoshop and I don't want to use say the magic wand and a mask with the brush tool. There must be some other method I am missing out on? Like, the method used with a green screen except this background is black instead of green?

Please, if anyone knows a good trick to superimpose this, I would love to know. (apart from the obvious less effective method of lasso or magic wand etc)

Heebie

You've got a lot of shades of gray in that "black" background.

If you take the gunshot itself, and select (by color) any colors that are below a certain intensity, you should be able to select all the greys without selecting the bright whites of the flare itself.. then you can invert that data and paste into the layer mask. (basically use it as an alpha channel with variable transparency) Then you can use a curves adjustment on the mask to adjust the transparency to the level that works best.

Thuck_Fat

Thanks for the reply. I decided to just paint my own one on a new layer. It actually looks awesome, I just made the basic colours and shapes needed with the help of Liquify, then used radial blur to blend everything and give it that genuine muzzle flare look