After the first exercise introducing at the same time layers and masks, my suggestion is to focus on how to create masks from the original image, without painting on the mask itself.
Let's suppose you want to enhance your picture by increasing the saturation mostly in the higlights. This means creating a mask where the shadows are dark and the highlights are light... That is exactly what a Black and white conversion would do.
You could create a layer by duplicating the layer (Ctrl J) and desaturating (Shift Ctrl U). Then selecting and copying this layer (Ctrl A, then Ctrl C). The last thing to do is to select the mask of the hue/saturation adjustment layer (Alt Click within the mask, which shows a blank screen and the marching ants on the border),
then pasting (Ctrl V). Now check if this mask is working by clicking now into the adjustment layer icon to vary the saturation: it does work! Another possibility, if you want to see what happens if you select your mask and invert it (Ctrl I): the highlights are masked and the shadows are given more saturation.
Now, it can be much simpler! You don't even need to copy your background and desaturate. You simply select your background and copy it (Ctrl A then Ctrl C) and copy it into the mask: same result, what you copy into the mask will be desaturated.
This is really quick and simple, and very useful if you want to protect either highlights or shadows from oversaturation and clipping.
Here you are creating a luminosity mask. No need for painting or sketching skills to create the mask, it is created from one simple property of the original image.
My challenge is now to find ways to use other properties of the original image to create other masks:
- midtones masks
- saturation (or vividness) masks
- hue or color masks
- edge masks to control sharpening or denoising
- channels masks
- probably other types I have not thought of...
There should be several ways to achieve this; I think this would be a good opportunity for experienced users to contribute to a collective and interactive tutorial.
Here are a few suggestions:
- for midtones, use either curves (smartcurves) or a gradient map adjustment layer.
- for saturation, use a difference layer on a very saturated copy
- hue or color: I find it more difficult. Use color fill layers and difference modes
- edge mask: start with a highpass layer or find edges filter plus a gradient map acting as a 'soft' threshold.
and in most cases you'll have to use levels or hue/saturation adjustments layers to desaturate, and threshold or better gradient map adjustment layers to increase the contrast of the masks.
Keep in mind that you can edit the mask after it is pasted: levels, contrast or lightness and even paint over it to mask further parts manually. But you have still more tools at your disposal before you paste it.
This exercise should help you master different techniques, but most of all it is an excellent training for analyzing pictures and spotting what kind of enhancement might work depending on each subject.
And even if the topic today is masks, the solutions call for many ways of using layers and blend modes!
Let's suppose you want to enhance your picture by increasing the saturation mostly in the higlights. This means creating a mask where the shadows are dark and the highlights are light... That is exactly what a Black and white conversion would do.
You could create a layer by duplicating the layer (Ctrl J) and desaturating (Shift Ctrl U). Then selecting and copying this layer (Ctrl A, then Ctrl C). The last thing to do is to select the mask of the hue/saturation adjustment layer (Alt Click within the mask, which shows a blank screen and the marching ants on the border),
then pasting (Ctrl V). Now check if this mask is working by clicking now into the adjustment layer icon to vary the saturation: it does work! Another possibility, if you want to see what happens if you select your mask and invert it (Ctrl I): the highlights are masked and the shadows are given more saturation.
Now, it can be much simpler! You don't even need to copy your background and desaturate. You simply select your background and copy it (Ctrl A then Ctrl C) and copy it into the mask: same result, what you copy into the mask will be desaturated.
This is really quick and simple, and very useful if you want to protect either highlights or shadows from oversaturation and clipping.
Here you are creating a luminosity mask. No need for painting or sketching skills to create the mask, it is created from one simple property of the original image.
My challenge is now to find ways to use other properties of the original image to create other masks:
- midtones masks
- saturation (or vividness) masks
- hue or color masks
- edge masks to control sharpening or denoising
- channels masks
- probably other types I have not thought of...
There should be several ways to achieve this; I think this would be a good opportunity for experienced users to contribute to a collective and interactive tutorial.
Here are a few suggestions:
- for midtones, use either curves (smartcurves) or a gradient map adjustment layer.
- for saturation, use a difference layer on a very saturated copy
- hue or color: I find it more difficult. Use color fill layers and difference modes
- edge mask: start with a highpass layer or find edges filter plus a gradient map acting as a 'soft' threshold.
and in most cases you'll have to use levels or hue/saturation adjustments layers to desaturate, and threshold or better gradient map adjustment layers to increase the contrast of the masks.
Keep in mind that you can edit the mask after it is pasted: levels, contrast or lightness and even paint over it to mask further parts manually. But you have still more tools at your disposal before you paste it.
This exercise should help you master different techniques, but most of all it is an excellent training for analyzing pictures and spotting what kind of enhancement might work depending on each subject.
And even if the topic today is masks, the solutions call for many ways of using layers and blend modes!