Section 7.3. Creating Effects with Targeted Adjustments

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. Feather 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. Select 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.

   Using the Color Range Selection to Adjust Midtones

   You will often find it useful to use the Color Range dialog to select midtones. For instance, in the example shown in Figure 7-15, I darkened the sky and the river by selecting Highlights, lifting them to a new layer, using the Multiply Blend Mode and then duplicating the layer. I then discovered that I wanted to lighten the shadows in the ridges and some other tonal qualities in the landscape. So I selected the shadows by inverting the selection made with the RGB Channel technique, lifted it to a new layer, and then opened the Color Range dialog again. This time, I clicked the eye dropper on one of the darker areas in the image. Then I used the Fuzziness slider to narrow the selection to just the areas I wanted to brighten and click OK. I feathered that selection by 80 pixels and then used a Curves adjustment layer with a Clipping Mask to brighten the shadows and add contrast to them.

   Figure 7-15. The HDR image on the right was created from the image from Camera Raw at the left by using the Select Highlights routines for the sky and river and the Curves method to lighten shadows and add contrast to the foreground.

   
   

   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.