Digital Photography Expert Techniques

7.3. Creating Effects with Targeted Adjustments

There are a number of special effects that you can create with targeted adjustments. This section suggests a few and you can take it from there.

7.3.1. Adding Colored Light

There are numerous ways to add colored lighting effects, but most of them involve using commands on the filter menu that are more destructive than the operations recommended in this chapter and at this workflow stage. However, you can do just about anything you want to do for a colored lighting effect by using a combination of the Solid Color adjustment layer, the Opacity and Fill sliders for that layer, and by painting some layer masks and using a Blend Mode or two. Moreover, you can do this to create coloring effects in different colors and in different parts of the image.

Admittedly, these effects aren't as slick or easily predicted as a great many third-party color effects filters. However, this method is nondestructive, doesn't require another layer (which doesn't mean you may not find reason to want one), and doesn't cost you extra bucks. In Figure 7-11, you see an image as I processed it in Camera Raw alongside an image treated with three color effects layers, each with its own mask.

Figure 7-11. An image with Camera Raw processing (left) and after applying three masked Solid Color adjustment layers (right).

7.3.2. Opening Up the Shadows

One of the most useful adjustments in Photoshop is Shadow/Highlight. It often does a better job of fill flash than if you had actually used simple fill flash. Fill flash has a tendency to cause red eye, create very deep and unnatural looking shadows just under the chin and nose, and usually overexposes the subject while underexposing the background. However, we'll have to save the Shadow/Highlight command itself for Chapter 11, as it makes dramatic changes to the image that can't later be dismissed or readjusted.

Besides, although it works quite well most of the time, there are other times when you might be happier with the results from other techniques, namely threshold masking, a masked Curves layer, or the use of Screen Blend Mode. You could even combine these techniques.

7.3.2.1. Threshold masking

I already mentioned threshold masking earlier in this chapter and discussed it as a way to brighten specific areas of brightness in an image in Chapter 6. Brightening shadows is another very good use for threshold masks. It's not as quick and easy as using the Select Color command (see the "Select color" section below), but has the advantage of allowing you to decide the level of brightness to start the masking. Here's how you do it:

1. Duplicate the file you want to mask and flatten its layers. Leave both the original and duplicate files open in Photoshop.

2. Choose ImageAdjustmentsHue/Saturation. When the Hue/Saturation dialog opens, drag the Saturation slider all the way to the left. Your image is now grayscale. This step isnt absolutely necessary, but does help you to judge the level of brightness.

3. Choose ImageAdjustmentsThreshold. The Threshold dialog appears, as seen in Figure 7-12. Note that the slider is turning everything black that is 75 percent gray because I didn't really want to lighten any midtones in this image.

   Figure 7-12. The Threshold dialog.

4. Select everything and copy itpress Cmd/Ctrl-A, then Cmd/Ctrl-C.

5. Select the original file and open the Channels palette (WindowChannels). Click the New Channel icon at the bottom of the palette. A channel named Alpha will appear and it will be selected. To place your mask in that channel, press Cmd/Ctrl-V. Since you actually want to mask the shadows, press Cmd/Ctrl-I to invert the Alpha channel. Now click the Make Selection (circle of dots) icon.

6. Choose SelectFeather and enter a small amount (410 pixels) of feathering if you expect your adjustment to be slight or a large amount (80200 pixels) if your adjustment is going to be drastic. The idea is for your adjustment to blend with the surrounding image without showing obvious edges or haloes.

7. Click the RGB channel, then open or go to the layers palette and choose an adjustment layer that will let you control Brightness and Contrast. You should experiment to see whether Brightness/Contrast, Levels, or Curves works best for your purposes. Be sure the preview box is checked in the dialog so you can visually set the effect as you want it. If you want to turn off the marching ants (the pulsing dashed line around your selection), press Cmd/Ctrl-H.

NOTE

One of the nicest and most controllable ways to darken nearly blown-out highlights is to select them, lift them to a new layer using the old Cmd/Ctrl-J trick, and put the new layer in Multiply Blend Mode. If the highlights are now too dark, just lower the Opacity or Fill of the layer. If they're still not dark enough, duplicate the Multiply layer as many times as necessary.

If you want to darken the highlights a bit, go back to the duplicate image, press Cmd/Ctrl-Opt/Alt-Z until you're back to a full-scale grayscale image, then use the Threshold command to mask just the very brightest highlights. Copy the result to a new Alpha channel in the original image, make a mask, feather it, and use your favored Brightness/Contrast adjustment layer to bring down the highlights. You can see the before and after results of lightening shadows using this method in Figure 7-13.

Figure 7-13. Note that the shadows have been filled regardless of their distance from the camera, just as they are when using the Shadow/Highlight command.

7.3.2.2. Select color

You can often emulate extended ranges simply by selecting the highlights or shadows and then using a duplicate layer in Multiply or Screen Blend Modes or an adjustment layer. Unlike making a mask from a Threshold adjustment of a duplicate file, your selection will be either shades that are brighter (highlights) or darker (shadows) than 50 percent gray.

There are two ways to select highlights or shadows:

Use the Channels palette

In my opinion, this is the easiest way to select highlights or shadows. Open the Channels palette (which, if you're working on regional adjustments, is a good idea to keep open) and Cmd/Ctrl-click on the RGB layer. The highlights will be immediately selected. If you want to select the shadows, just invert the selection with Cmd/Ctrl-Shift-I.

Use the Select Color Range adjustment

Choose AdjustmentsSelect Color Range. In the Select color dialog (see Figure 7-14) choose either Highlights or Shadows. I always choose Highlights and then simply invert the mask with Cmd/Ctrl-Shift-I.

Figure 7-14. The Select Color Range dialog with Highlights chosen from the Select menu.

Once you have your highlights selected, you can invert the selection to make a shadow mask, if that's the area you prefer to work on.

7.3.2.3. Curves

If the image you're working on just needs some minor brightening, darkening, and contrast changes, make your mask by whatever method seems bestincluding those previously mentioned. Then open a Curves adjustment layer and attach it to the portion of the image that you lifted from the selection. Add a Clipping Mask to the Curves adjustment layer by choosing Create Clipping Mask from the layers palette menu. Make your curves so that they affect the area of brightness you want to affect. If you want the effect to also lighten the overall selected area, try either the Screen or Lighten Blend Mode.

7.3.2.4. Screen Blend Mode

You can often lighten an area by simply selecting and lifting the selected area to its own layer, then placing that layer in Screen Blend Mode. This is a technique I often use for high-key portraits, but it can be useful for lightening all sorts of areas.