Best way to do this(CS4 question)

onebaduce

Hey All, I have been learning CS4 past couple weeks and starting to get some good finer points down that are really helping my photo's. I have one I just took that I want to take some lost information in the shadows and paste it into the original.

here you can see all the great info of the stream bed that is lost in the original that comes out in the curves layer when i crank the bottom end.


Here is the original that I want to put the lower stream section into



So what what you do? Thanks for any advice!!

Ric Grupe

Just go to your curves layer and erase where you do NOT want the effect.

CWSkopec

The easist way to do it that I'm aware of would be to use layer masks.

I haven't used CS4 some maybe there's an easier way that someone can fill you in on, but in CS3, I would;

1. Create copies of both the "Background copy" and curves layers you've already got and merge those together. (Select them both in the layers palette and right click, you'll see the "Merge layers" option in the menu that pops up. I would do this to copies, because I hate to lose steps and if you ever want to go back and tweak the curves layer, you can't do it after merging the layers.
2. Turn off the visibility of the curves layer and "Background copy" layer. Keep them for future adjustments, just in case, but we don't need to see them.
3. Select the layer of the merged background and curves, then click the "Add vector mask" button at the bottom of the Layers palette. (just to the right of the "FX" button, looks like a square with a circle taken out of it)
4. Then with the layer mask selected, use the brush tool (B) and forground color black to "paint away" the top layer, leaving jsut the streambed you like. You can change the brushes intensity by playing with the opacity and hardness, but I would recommend starting at 100% opacity and 0 hardness to get rid of most of the scene. Smaller details along the edge would benefit from lower opactiy, but 0 hardness will make it easier to blend together.

Hope that makes sense...

CWSkopec

Ric Grupe wrote:

Just go to your curves layer and erase where you do NOT want the effect.

I'm not thinking so clear today... yes... just mask away the curves layer!

Ric Grupe

CWSkopec wrote:

I'm not thinking so clear today... yes... just mask away the curves layer!

Neither am I!

What I said doesn't work with an adjustment layer...I just tried it.

So I will crawl back under my rock and wait for someone that knows.

aj986s

If I'm understanding this, maybe you need to put the Curves Adjustment Layer ABOVE the main image, and then delete in the mask everything you DON'T want in the Curves Adj Layer.

Ric Grupe

Ric Grupe wrote:

Neither am I!

What I said doesn't work with an adjustment layer...I just tried it.

So I will crawl back under my rock and wait for someone that knows.

Okay...tried again.

On the adjustment layer...right click...select add mask to selection and then erase away where you do not want the curves adjustment.

BTW...I am new to PS not just CS4...but I'll get it eventually!

onebaduce

thanks for the input guys, just got in I will give that a shot over the weekend and post result

cheers!

jjbong

What you do is add a layer mask to the curves adjustment layer. This is PS3, but I'm sure there's something similar in PS4. Do this when the curves adjustment layer is selected:



Now, with the mask selected, you can control how much of the mask is applied (and where) by what's in the mask. Where it's white, the curve is applied completely. Where it's black, the curve is not applied at all. Where it's in between, the curve is applied partially, according to the luminosity.

So the mask starts out at all white, which means the curve is applied everywhere at full intensity. You can paint over the mask with black to reduce or eliminate where the curve is applied. By using the brush tool and setting the flow to a low value (say, 10%), you can get a good deal of control over this. Paint over the mask to reduce the effect of the curve. Paint over it a bunch of times, and you eliminate it completely. If you make a mistake and over-do it, switch the brush to white and correct it.

Richard

Depending on the circumstances, it is often less work to start with a mask that hides everything (all black) and use a white brush to reveal only those parts that you want to change. You can do this easily by following John's instructions but holding down the alt key while you click the button.

onebaduce

result
Thank you all for the lesson. I created the mask off of the curves layer and ereased everything but the stream bed. worked like a charm!! Thanks jj and everyone for the tip! Shooting snow is hard to expose the snow right you loose alot in the shadows. This technique will help me alot.

jjbong

Some more thoughts on this:

1. Have you tried using Shadow/Highlight on this? There's a great tutorial by rutt on this:
http://dgrin.smugmug.com/gallery/1777665

2. There's a more complicated approach to this that works especially well in bringing out detail in the highlights and/or shadows:
[thread]64165[/thread]

3. Since you want to apply your curve in (some of) the darker parts of the image, you can build the mask for the curves adjustment layer from the image itself. Something like: duplicate the image, convert to LAB, select the L channel, invert it, steepen it (with Auto Levels or a curve), paint out any unwanted areas, and blur it. Sounds complicated, but it's actually pretty quick.

I would have tried some of these to see how well they worked, if you had supplied the original image instead of a PS screenshot.

onebaduce

John, Great info on the links. I will try your suggestion #3 as well. I didn't post the original as I want to do this myself so I can retain the how-to. The knowledge seems to stick that way

I'll post up some results later trying the different methods.


Thanks

Joe

onebaduce

wow night and day
using the shadow tool, following rutts tut. much better results. thank You again John.