| A COUPLE OF QUICK CHANNEL MOVES CAN MAKE YOUR LIGHTING MORE EVEN This is a more subtle technique, but when you need to even out your lighting, and tone down your highlights, boy does it come in handy. This is another of those techniques that you probably pull off with a combination of the Clone Stamp tool, the Healing Brush, and some blend modes, but it's too easy to get "caught" if you're not really patient. However, using the channels method, there are no telltale signs of a retouch, it takes just a fraction of the time, and the results are smooth, seamless, and well worth the little bit of effort once you see the final result. Step 1. | OPEN THE PHOTO THAT HAS HIGHLIGHTS YOU WANT TO REDUCE. DUPLICATE THE BACKGROUND LAYER Open the photo that has highlights that you want to tone down. In this photo, the woman has bright highlights along the right side of her face that are a little too strong. The highlights aren't blown out, we just want them pulled back a bit (when you see a before and after at the end of this tutorial, you'll see what a difference this subtle move can make). Start off by pressing Command-J (PC: Control-J) to duplicate the Background layer. ©ISTOCKPHOTO/SHARON DOMINICK | | | Step 2. | FIND THE CONTRAST CHANNEL Now, take a look through the three channels and find the channel that has the most contrast. In this particular photo, it looks to me like the Blue channel (shown here) has the most contrast of the three.
| Step 3. | LOAD THE CONTRAST CHANNEL (BLUE IN THIS CASE) AS A SELECTION AND SAVE SELECTION. DESELECT We need to load the Blue channel as a selection, so go to the Channels palette, hold the Command key (PC: Control key), and click directly on the Blue channel. This loads the channel as a selection (you can see the loaded selection within the image shown here). We want to save this selection (which turns our selection into an Alpha channelan extra channel we can mess with, without ruining any of our three color channels). Go under the Select menu and choose Save Selection. When the dialog appears (shown here), you can name your new Alpha channel if you like, then click OK. Press Command-D (PC: Control-D) to Deselect.
| | | Step 4. | TARGET YOUR NEW ALPHA CHANNEL, AND APPLY A GAUSSIAN BLUR TO BLUR THE DETAILS Press Command-4 (PC: Control-4) to see your new Alpha channel (of course, you could just go to the Channels palette and click on Alpha 1, but that's just so, I dunno…manual). Now, we're going to put a small blur on the channel. Go to the Filter menu, under Blur, and choose Gaussian Blur. This particular image is a low-res 72 ppi image, so we can get away with a blur of just 5 pixels. If you're working on a high-res 300 ppi image, try 12 pixels instead. Click OK to apply a blur to your Alpha channel.
| Step 5. | PRESS COMMAND-I (PC: CONTROL-I) TO INVERT THE CHANNEL We now need to invert our Alpha channel, so press Command-I (PC: Control-I) to Invert the channel (as shown here). Click on the Eye icon next to your RGB Composite channel to see the Alpha channel with the composite image. Now it's ready to use with Apply Image to reduce those highlights.
| | | Step 6. | GO TO APPLY IMAGE. CHOOSE THE ALPHA CHANNEL AS YOUR CHANNEL AND BLEND IN OVERLAY MODE Go under the Image menu and choose Apply Image. Since you're already working on the Alpha channel, you'll see your named channel appear as the selected channel (I named mine "Blue Channel Highlights," that's why you see it in the Channel pop-up menu). Change the Blending mode to Overlay, and click OK to apply this channel to your layer. At this point, the image will look pretty horsey (not like a pretty horsey. Pretty horsey. It's not good. But then, we're not done).
| Step 7. | TO MAKE YOUR CHANGE BLEND IN, CHANGE THE LAYER BLEND MODE TO DARKEN To make this channel blend in with the rest of your image, go to the Layers palette and change the layer's blend mode from Normal to Darken (as shown here).
| | | Step 8. | USE THE BLEND IF SLIDER SET TO THE GREEN CHANNEL; DRAG THE BOTTOM LEFT SLIDER TO THE RIGHT Now, her face and the present she's holding appear a little bit too red, but that's easy to fix. Go to the Blending Options (by using the Add a Layer Style pop-up menu or double-clicking on the layer). Set the Blend If channel to Green, then drag the left Underlying Layer slider to the right until the package looks normal again, and her face doesn't have as much red in it. Don't forget to split the slider by holding the Option key (PC: Alt key), then click OK.
| Step 9. | REMOVE ANY EXCESS RED: GO TO HUE/SATURATION AND DESATURATE THE RED CHANNEL To me, our highlight fix still looked a little too red, but you can pull an easy trick for reducing the amount of red in this layer. Go under the Image menu, under Adjustments, and choose Hue/Saturation (or press Command-U [PC: Control-U]). When the dialog appears, choose to edit just the Reds (from the pop-up menu at the top of the dialog), then lower the amount of Saturation by dragging to the left a bit (as shown here).
| | | Step 10. | HERE'S A BEFORE AND AFTER WITH THE HIGHLIGHTS TONED DOWN Keep dragging to the left until your highlights match the shade of the rest of her face, and then click OK to finish the highlight move. On the left is the original, with her face brightly lit on the right side, and then on the right is the fixed version, with the highlights toned down and detail brought back in those areas.
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