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Quik, easy, and effective PP techniques...

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I don't have any pics just yet, but I stumbled upon a quite interesting technique that is a little easier then the previous one I had posted... (the one I posted with the pics).

I've tried this method side by side with Boo's method for localized changes, using a transparent layer and painting in various shades of color that then get blended with softlight, etc... I think my method can yeild better results with only a bit more effort... I'll post some side by side examples later.

This technique is basicly for reducing shadows, and/or lightening up parts of a image that are undesireably dark....

Basicly you duplcate the background, remove the color of this new layer (by de-saturating) and then invert it, change the blend mode to overlay, then make a mask for this layer and copy the inverted black and white image into the mask. Adjust the opacity to suit your needs. To make things look really nice paint parts of the mask black. Anything you paint black in the mask will remain unchanged from the original image. The parts that you want brightend should be left as the inverted black and white version of the original background.

This is fairly painless to do the more area you don't want changed, the more work you need to do in painting the mask black... however the parts you want brightened up, look really great, with little or no noise added in the lightening process.

I will show some examples later... maybe tomorrow.
 
I think I have to amend my last post on this matter... Boo's method can indeed work just as good as my newest method... it depends on how well you pick the colors you paint with using the Boo method... My method requires no picking of colors, so the results are somewhat more consistant for me at this point, however I did indeed notice that if you choose the correct color, the Boo method can look just as good if not better then my newest method... I guess I'll just keep both tricks up my sleave for now.
Glenn W. said:
I don't have any pics just yet, but I stumbled upon a quite
interesting technique that is a little easier then the previous one
I had posted... (the one I posted with the pics).

I've tried this method side by side with Boo's method for localized
changes, using a transparent layer and painting in various shades
of color that then get blended with softlight, etc... I think my
method can yeild better results with only a bit more effort...
I'll post some side by side examples later.

This technique is basicly for reducing shadows, and/or lightening
up parts of a image that are undesireably dark....

Basicly you duplcate the background, remove the color of this new
layer (by de-saturating) and then invert it, change the blend mode
to overlay, then make a mask for this layer and copy the inverted
black and white image into the mask. Adjust the opacity to suit
your needs. To make things look really nice paint parts of the mask
black. Anything you paint black in the mask will remain unchanged
from the original image. The parts that you want brightend should
be left as the inverted black and white version of the original
background.

This is fairly painless to do the more area you don't want changed,
the more work you need to do in painting the mask black... however
the parts you want brightened up, look really great, with little or
no noise added in the lightening process.

I will show some examples later... maybe tomorrow.
Click to expand...
 
I kept strugling with the amount of effort this technique, when 90% of the image didn't need any such adjustments... and the painting technique Boo shared was looking like it was much easier, except for the picking the right colors, etc...

So I got to thinking... Using this inverted overlay area with inverted mask, I wish i could just paint in the areas I want to be brightened, but still keep things to the point where any non artistic person (somewhat like myself) could do easily...

Then I figured it out....

Duplicate the background layer, desaturate it, invert it... For discussion sake lets call this the 'B&W_negitive' layer. This layer will not be visable in the final image, it's merely used as a source for cloning into the next layer...

Create a new blank layer with a 'overlay' blending mode, lets call this new layer 'highlighter' , add a mask to it. Copy the desaturated/inverted layer from previous step into the mask area for this 'highlighter' layer.

Now the magic part...

Use the clone stamp ... with a soft sided brush shape, normal cloneing mode, algined, not using all layers, and 100% opacity... Choose a source point from the 'B&W_negitive' layer, noting the exact point you choose using the rulers. Then go back to the 'highlighter' layer and start cloning, being careful to start with the exact same point (using rulers to find it). You can make the 'B&W_negitive' layer so that it doesn't show in the image at this point... Now just use your clone tool to go 'clone' the areas you want highlighted. If you make a mistake, use the eraser tool to get rid of the parts you accidently cloned in... (again a eraser with a soft sided brush shape works best)

Note, the mask of the highlighter area reamains a exact copy of the 'B&W_negitive' layer... you don't modify this mask at all once it's in place. You only clone into the main part of the 'highlighter' raster image area...

This method is pretty darn close to fool proof for lightening up shadowy areas... You can adjust the opacity of the 'highlighter' area as desired... You only clone the areas you need highlighted... (so it's extremely localized highlighting).... Only takes minimal artistic skills and can be pretty easily corrected if you make a mistake, by clone the wrong spots... The only tricky part is getting the cloning source in the 'B&W_negitive' layer, to line up exactly with the target spot in the highlight layer... but that's not really that hard when you use the rules...
thejaybird said:
duplicate/desaturate/invert/overlay is a classic and very useful
for recovering shadows. The best thing about it is the shadow color
is better compared to other methods (IMO)

--
http://www.pbase.com/thejaybird
Click to expand...
 
this is essentially the contrast mask method I posted a few days ago. Set this up as an action and it is pretty easy. Masking then painting the areas of interest is the icing on the cake.

;)

Kerkula
 
This does sound usefull... unfortunately I odn't have CS2... and there is no 'Select> color range> shadows' feature in Elements 3.0 (which I do have)

however as I said in one of the other posts you responded to... I did figure out how to paint only the things I want with the inverted olverlay/masked... which works pretty good and I'm shure is very simmilar to what's getting done with the method you've described here.

Thanks.
kerkula said:
The Shadows/Highlights feature of CS2 is a great tool but like you,
I don't always get the results I want. (I actually find it more
useful for taming strong highlights.)

Here's how I work with images that have shadows I want to bring up.
it is called a contrast mask and although the steps below make it
look elaborate I have saved these as an action and it is pretty
easy to use.

1 duplicate layer and set as an overlay
2 Select> color range> shadows with the the invert box checked
3 edit> clear (this deletes all but the shadows from the layer)
4 image> adjustments> desaturate
5 image> adjustment> invert
6 gaussian blur (I use a radius of 100 but feel free to experiment)

By adjusting the opacity of this layer you can bring up the shadows
in a high contrast image. I have found it very useful for scanned
slides. You can also create a contrast mask omitting steps 2 and 3
but I don't like the results because it affects the highlights and
midtones too much.

You can also get very creative by erasing parts of this layer so
that only particular shadows get the boost.

hope this is of use to you.

kerkula
Click to expand...
 
You know... it's great to be able to buy books on-line cheaper then you can get them at the book store... but I really like to get my hands on a book and browse the pages before I buy... I've read alot of good reviews about this book... but you know it kills me... I went to my local book store... and they don't have this book... I went to a Barnes&Noble and a Borders, and neither have this book in stock...

Arrrghhh.
2blackdogs said:
Have you checked out Scott Kelby's The Photoshop Elements 3 Book
for Digital Photographers? It's full of tricks like the one you
found.

http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/0321269055/104-2197648-2544731?v=glance&n=283155&s=books&v=glance
Click to expand...
 
You have to be careful, though. I find that it often reduces the contrast of other areas too much. Masking areas not needed to be changed is recommended.
 
Hello... I just wanted to report on what I've found with the full version of PhotoShop CS2... with regard to what's been discussed in this thread... I'm currently in a 30 day trial period of use of CS2 and am considering forking out $299 to upgrad from Elements that came with my Canon camera...

First of... the using of a duplicate layer set to screen... This type of thing has it's own dedicated adjustment feature in CS2... You use the 'Image> Apply Image " function... You can select any 'layer mode' you want to apply... you can even tell it to use a mask... You can invert either the image or the mask.... basicly you can pretty much duplciate any of the techniques discussed in this thread, from this one feature.

Add in the use of PhotoShop CS2's 'history brush', and they've basicly automated the trick I discovered of using the 'clone' tool to paint in certian portions of a seperat layer that is'nt currently 'visable'...

Now, aside from having to cobble the use of 'layer masks' in Elements, you basicly can do any of these techniques in Elements 3/4... however clearly they are easier to do in the full CS2 version of PhotoShop...

So is this ease worth $299? well I'm not sure yet... but there are other things in CS2 as well that aren't in Elements... I'm currently trying to figure out exactly what usefull features are in CS2, that are not available in Elements...

There is the ablity to make your own 'actions' and futher automate various techniques... There is this kind of interesting tool for 'extracting' parts of a image... It uses this cool tool that allows you to sort of draw allong a 'edge' of a subject, and later go in a tweak that line, and ultimately do a pretty darn good job of selecting and/or extracting various parts of a image. Oh, and they have dramaticly improved the 'shadows/highlights' function, allowing tweaks as to how broad a range will be considered to be 'shadow' or 'hightlight', and also has ablity to correct some of the colors that tend to get washed out when using this type of tool...

So, can anyone help me figure out exactly why I should pay $299 to upgrade from Elements 3, to CS2? What cool features and/or things can you do in CS2 that are either difficult or impossible to do in Elements?
 
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