The 'Cletus Method'

XO-Studios

Another thread made me read up on 'The Cletus Method'

http://www.dgrin.com/showthread.php?t=2478

First reading, I was thinking great method, but it missing the highlight, midtones, and shadow selection.

That is when it came to me, a nice addition the 'The Cletus Method'.

Doing it in an overlay layer, the layer properties allow you to modify the blend if sliders, this in effect will allow you to do what highlight, midtone, and shadows does, but better,fully adjustable what tonal range of the picture you want to adjust.

FWIW,

XO,

pathfinder

Great idea XO!! - the use of layers and blending modes to modify editing changes can be done with almost any image editing change - including overlay blending that Cletus described here originally. But layers can also be done with sharpening in RGB or LAB, with dodging or burning and then blending the layers.
I like using a layer when I use the healing brush on portraits - particularly of ladies - then I can use the slider in the normal blending mode to lighten the touch and just fade it back into the background frame. It could even be done with the history brush in a seperate layer and blending that with the background layer also. Lots and lots of cool ways to accomplish tasks in PS

cletus

Great stuff

XO-Studios

pathfinder wrote:

Great idea XO!! - the use of layers and blending modes to modify editing changes can be done with almost any image editing change - including overlay blending that Cletus described here originally.

Pathfinder, just making sure we are on the same page here, I was talking not necessarily about blending modes (normal, screen, overlay, darker, etc) and while they sure apply and I use them a lot; but about the sliders that determine what the value(s) of the underlaying layer and the active layer needs to be before the layer will apply its blend mode.

FWIW,

XO,

I see what you are saying - you're referring the the Opacity of each layer before the blending modes. Even better

wxwax

Opacity.

XO-Studios

More about...

wxwax wrote:

Opacity.

NOPE not opacity

OK see the image below.

Blend if sliders will allow you to select what tonal range you want the overlay layer to apply to. In the example below, I put a blue fill on top of a gradient, and told what value to start belnding and what value to stop.

The application it has with the Cletus method is as follows. Lets say you have a portrait, with as backdrop greenery, with sun coming through in between the leaves. Some ppl might find that distracting. To fix this, follow along with the Cletus method to burn, but rather than selecting each individual highlight, adjust the bottom slider to a high value (like 230) as minimum blending, and burn away, now your overlay will only apply to area's with a high grey (or R, G or value.

Hope this makes more sense this time.

XO,

pathfinder

Sorry - I seem to be slow today You referred in your first post that you could limit the effect to various tonal ranges - now I see what you are talking about. I'll have to think this through and give it a try. Thanks for taking the time to straighten me out.

Netgarden

Hey XO thanks for the info post.
I have a question, if you don't mind. I clicked on your photo album and BTW you have soem great shots, but I saw I had a choice there to choose SmugMug style of display like smugmug small, traditional, journal, etc. It also had the place to purchase, and I saw that on my own site, and didn't particularly want to see my photos for "0" . lolol + the 29cents for printing.

Are those supposed to show up for all to see? Did you choose that or are all of our albums like that? I'm not sure I want people messing with the style layout or ordering prints off it, unbeknownst to me.

Do you know of a way to disallow these two features? Thanks for your input.

Oh and while I'm at it, my friend was on headset with me today, and said she only saw 3 rows of photos and 5 rows down, versus me seeing 4 rows across, 4 rows down. So I had 16 photos on each page and she had 15. Was it because of her screen resolution? Thanks! I was just curious. Sorry, off subject.

XO-Studios

HMmmm after playimng with this myself, there are still a couple of time, that this method is no substitute for the regular dodge/burn highlights, midtones, shadows selection. The transition from what does and doesn't get adjusted is rather harsh.

XO,

ps. I still like the Cletus method.

pathfinder

XO-Studios wrote:

HMmmm after playimng with this myself, there are still a couple of time, that this method is no substitute for the regular dodge/burn highlights, midtones, shadows selection. The transition from what does and doesn't get adjusted is rather harsh.

XO,

ps. I still like the Cletus method.

With a nice, soft brush at lower opacities - 10-20% it works really nicely. I use it on a layer for delicate plastic surgery on faces :

XO-Studios

pathfinder wrote:

With a nice, soft brush at lower opacities - 10-20% it works really nicely. I use it on a layer for delicate plastic surgery on faces :

Pathfinder,

what I meant was that the blend if sliders is what gives a harsh transition, I LIKE the Original Cletus Method, and indeed super soft and low opacity.

XO,

pathfinder

XO-Studios wrote:

Pathfinder,

what I meant was that the blend if sliders is what gives a harsh transition, I LIKE the Original Cletus Method, and indeed super soft and low opacity.

XO,

We're in synch XO!!

XO-Studios

pathfinder wrote:

We're in synch XO!!

Good, next we will try to get you to dish that silly Canon, and join the Nikonians

:poke :hide

pathfinder

XO-Studios wrote:

Good, next we will try to get you to dish that silly Canon, and join the Nikonians

:poke :hide

:nono :nono :duel