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I finally got one finished. Because I don't have a lot of photos I had trouble selecting a suitable one. Finally settled for this sixty year old photo of two Bantam chickens, Paul and Pauline, we had as pets when I was a teenager. Because there was a stain and also a crease I got to practice with the clone stamp too.

Thanks Michel for the step by step instructions, and the illustrations.

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Image

Image

I had a bit of a time with this one :| In that I was finding that the mask was not having the wanted result,
so i played with it a bit, I ended up inverting the picture in the mask. That gave some wired results but something I could play with. I ended up using the posterization filter and mask, and the inverted picture for the mask part, with the layer set to luminosity. Not totally thrilled with the results,
but atleast its a result. :chickendance:
___________________
Nolan
My Gallery. http://www.prestophoto.com/photos/gallery/19755
Website, http://www.photographybynolan.com
Nikon D300/PSE6/CS4/LR2/Vista/Firefox
Nolan,
It's good to master the technique, even if you don't have a picture ready needing it.
Here are a few cases where you might want to deal differently with highlights or shadows.
- Noise. It may be more visible on shadows, so masking highlights enables denoising the shadows while avoiding a plastic look on midtones and highlights.
- Saturation. Increasing saturation to get more vivid pictures may lead to disastrous results in highlights. A luminosity mask is generally very good if you want to increase saturation more than 10-20 %. By the way, if you decrease the saturation of shadows, by contrast the midtones may look more vivid. A midtones mask would be more effective... this will be for another post!
- Colour adjustments. Adjusting Hue/sat gives you the possibility to target hue, but you also can target shadows or highlights at the same time. For example, correcting a blue cast in the shadows and a warm cast in the highlights.
- Local contrast enhancements (large radius USM or High Pass). There is a risk of losing detail in shadows or highlights depending on the subject.

This kind of mask is mainly used in picture corrections, but why not use them creatively?
Michel B
PSE6, 11,12,13.1 - LR 5.7 Windows 7 64 - OneOne Photo Perfect Suite - Canon 20D, Pana TZ6 - Fuji X100S
Most used add-ons: Elements+


Mes Galeries
Tx Michel. I made a duplicate layer, added Grant's mask, and pasted in per the adjustment mask directions. I inverted the mask and reduced noise filter 3 times on the layer and changed the layer blend mode to darken to reduce the film grain that was visible in this old film double exposure. i like the look better now and just in time-family wedding tomorrow. Now I understand how hidden elements mask shadows/highlights work. :thumbsup:
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Very good, Linda,

After an excercise, it is best to make a summary of what has been learned and understood.

- You can use an existing property of the image to create a mask without painting: luminosity, tones and colours may be used, and others like edges.
- You know how to copy and paste the content of a layer into a mask, invert it and even modify it (luminosity, contrast, levels, threshold...) once it has been copied
- You still can paint on the mask when it has been created. Imagine you want to denoise a blue sky without changing another blue element of your image: use the magic wand to select blue. Add a mask to a copy layer. With the selection active, activate the mask (alt click) and fill selection with black. Inverse. Everything not blue is masked. Paint black on the blue parts you don't want to denoise (flowers, clothes...). You can denoise the sky without changing the rest. You could do this without a mask. Once you have selected the blue, copy and paste on a new layer (Ctrl J). And then erase the blue ouside the sky. Generally a mask offers more possibilities to undo a bad painting or erasing.
Michel B
PSE6, 11,12,13.1 - LR 5.7 Windows 7 64 - OneOne Photo Perfect Suite - Canon 20D, Pana TZ6 - Fuji X100S
Most used add-ons: Elements+


Mes Galeries
These all look great. Michel, you are doing a great job with these excerises!!!
I think I did it right, will try to progress to the second phase adding a filter next time.

before
Image


After
Image
Danny

--------------------------
Konica Minolta Maxxum 5D; PSE 5; Windows XP

A brave new step:
My Flickr galleries
My much smaller but growing PrestoPhoto picts
I am starting to figure this out. But, I have a question. How do you determine whether the mask applies to highlights, shadows or mid-tones?
Danny

--------------------------
Konica Minolta Maxxum 5D; PSE 5; Windows XP

A brave new step:
My Flickr galleries
My much smaller but growing PrestoPhoto picts
dsstrick9 wrote: I am starting to figure this out. But, I have a question. How do you determine whether the mask applies to highlights, shadows or mid-tones?


The basics of a mask:
Black will hide, white shows. The darker the grey tones, the more they will hide.
So, if you paste an image into a mask, the darker parts will be hidden, it is a shadows mask.
If you invert the mask (Ctrl I), you get a negative. It is a luminosity mask.
To get a midtones mask, the highlights and the shadows must be clear, the midtones must be dark. How can you transform an image this way? There are several ways.
Here is one, simple to apply, less so to understand... On a duplicate layer, do filter/stylize/solarize. Midtones are kept, and highlights are inverted. To better see the result, you can desaturate (optional) and apply autolevels. The mask is ready to be pasted. It shows midtones. If you want to hide them, invert (Ctrl I).
Other ways are to apply a gradient map, or a bell curve. More on this in another post, I need to show a few screenshots...
Michel B
PSE6, 11,12,13.1 - LR 5.7 Windows 7 64 - OneOne Photo Perfect Suite - Canon 20D, Pana TZ6 - Fuji X100S
Most used add-ons: Elements+


Mes Galeries
Michel,

Thanks for the quick reply. It is all starting to click now.

The basics of a mask:
Black will hide, white shows. The darker the grey tones, the more they will hide.
So, if you paste an image into a mask, the darker parts will be hidden, it is a shadows mask.


Putting exercise 1 together with exercise 2. I look forward to playing with this some more.

I know you are busy with your big project with the friend's 40th anniversary (which I hope is going well), but I am looking forward to exercise 3.

Thanks again for putting these together and sharing your techniques.
Danny

--------------------------
Konica Minolta Maxxum 5D; PSE 5; Windows XP

A brave new step:
My Flickr galleries
My much smaller but growing PrestoPhoto picts
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