Been a while.

[Tim Tucker]

It's been a while since I posted a shot, yet don't seem to have held back in offering advice. So I would like to offer a shot from last fall. Though I don't know if I've shown it before, I've never been happy with it until this afternoon. I'd also like to show you how I edited it with a brief explanation of why and what I was trying to achieve. Not because it's necessarily right in any way but that it just may be different and another perspective to combine with your own knowledge.

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It started life as a raw file, including power line. Though I shot it knowing how I was going to crop:

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Typically flat raw file that doesn't do any justice to what I actually saw or my memory of it. I actually ended up tone mapping this a little, something that I don't like doing as it equalises values that I generally feel I have to work harder at later to separate again:

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To me it looks a bit flatter as it looses some of the impression of light, but it does allow me to bring up the colour in the foreground more and control the values in the sky.

Here is the layers panel in PhotoShop:

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The first layer is a smart object because I don't generally do anything in raw until I've looked at the image in PS, as a smart object I can go back to it.

The second layer is where I succeeded today. The problem with the scene is like all good light it can be very fickle. In late October the sun sits low and there was a cloud forming as the air rose over a mountain on my left. So the sunlight hitting the ground was both narrow and fleeting. It absolutely refused to light both sets of trees at the same time before disappearing almost completely. The beam of light in the photo briefly half lit the left trees a couple of seconds before swinging into full glory on the trees on the right. Paying attention I caught both moments. Today I succeeded in combining the two shots probably because I didn't stop to think about it but just did it. The second layer is the first shot taken 2 seconds before the main image. What I did was to line it up then use the colour select tool to select the highlights of the sunlight tree and grass, (because in sunlight only the highlights change, the shadows remain). This was the mask I used to blend them. It isn't really cheating, the moment unfolded before my eyes and my memory is of it all and not just a split second of it, think of it as more like a movie.

In fact the first 6 layers are all about adding variety to the colour by building layers of variations based on different selections. The next 6 layers are based on luminosity masks (or modified ones) and is about enhancing the contrasts between areas. For instance darks is the inverted basic luminosity mask and blending is set to Luminosity so it only adjusts the scale of contrast and not colour of the darker tones. The copy is a scaled back version with the blending set to colour. Same with mids 2, (mids 2 is a broader selection than the middle-tone mask which doesn't really select anything). Lights is really just controlling the luminosity in the sky.

Compare the scale of contrast between the foreground trees and the background ones. Also look at the scale of colours, yellow/green and red/brown in the foreground to cyan/blue in the background. I liked the way the reflection of the background colours outlined the trees on the left and provided the contrast in colour to balance the contrast in brightness of the trees on the right, which it seems to do better since I finally manage to get the highlights in there today. This is what I was aiming to achieve, not to add stuff but enhance the differences that were already there.

The second top layer is just a high pass sharpening against the darks luminosity mask (sharpens the areas of greater contrast/foreground).

The top layer is just the border. But just like in a game of poker you do not reveal your whole hand I did not here. If you look at the histogram you will see the sharp spike towards the shadows in the separate channels which is the mask. Yes, it isn't black. Why reveal the whole scale? If I made it black then you could (by simple comparison) see that every tone in the image was if not equal, brighter than black. By keeping this reference tone above black my ace in the hole is that I can reveal tones within the image that are a deeper black, blacker than the black border. .

Hope the above is of some help to somebody.

 

[Rick50]

Well, I do like the result even though I didn't read the lengthy explanation.

 

[Gary A.]

Wow ... Wonderful ...

You are so skilled in processing ... I wonder if you even need a photograph, you can do it all in post. (This is fully intended as a complement.)

 

[weepete]

Very nice shot Tim. Thanks for the explination too, it was an interesting read.

 

[Tim Tucker]

You are so skilled in processing ...

LOL, If that were the case I would've edited it in 16 bit rather than starting in 8.

 

[smoke665]

Same with mids 2, (mids 2 is a broader selection than the middle-tone mask which doesn't really select anything)

I'm just starting to learn the application of luminosity masks. I've done ok on the highlights and shadows using the curves adjustments, but I'm lost on the midtones, using hue/saturation. Would you mind elaborating more on this?

 

[Tim Tucker]

I'm just starting to learn the application of luminosity masks. I've done ok on the highlights and shadows using the curves adjustments, but I'm lost on the midtones, using hue/saturation. Would you mind elaborating more on this?

Sit comfortably, it'll be a long post.

Luminosity masks are great because they are almost self feathering, (as long as you don't go too far). As you have already discovered the basic luminosity mask is the 'lights' one. If you invert it you get the darks. If you subtract the lights and darks from the whole image you get the mid-tones mask. But because you subtract one from it's inverse you end up with a selection that's never less than 50% masked.

If you intersect the lights mask with itself you get a more targeted selection of highlights. Do the same with the darks mask then subtract both from the whole selection and you get the mids 2 mask which is a broader selection of mid-tones. I have my masks saved as an action so I just create all at the touch of a button. I will always delete these before saving as I can easily re-create then and they take a lot of memory, (the ones I've used are already part of the photoshop image).

Usually my workflow revolves around getting the colours first then adjusting the range of luminance, but once the layers are down there is some to-ing and fro-ing. Also I rarely, if ever use the hue/saturation tool and much prefer using layers of balance by eye against a masked balance by computer to start and then maybe the selective colour or a few other tricks. Hue/Saturation even with luminosity masks only really pushes colour in one direction. Luminosity masks, though, I generally use for adjusting luminosity only and not colour.

I found the main part of understanding control in colour is being able to separate the colour from the luminosity. A normal curves adjustment does both, something you can change with selecting the blending mode. Here are samples from the image posted, in which I've actually pushed both colour and luminosity with the masks, but done them separately.

Here is the basic image with the colour adjusted before I've applied the corrections in luminosity to the darks mask. I've shown you this with the darks because there is a far greater adjustment in colour with the secondary curves layer than I did with the mids:

Now here it is with the darks curves adjustment, note the curves adjustment layer blending mode is set to luminosity and not normal. This way it only adjusts luminosity and not colour saturation:

On this image I did a secondary curves adjustment layer with the darks mask but this time I set the blending mode to colour so it only adjusted the colour and not the luminosity. Here it is with it hidden:

Here it is with it revealed, note it only changes the colour contrast (linked to saturation) and not the luminosity, also note that by separating the two that I can apply different curves to both the colour and luminosity channels thus changing them independently of each other and not linked:

I also changed the luminosity and colour of the mid-tones separately in the same manner, but the change in colour in the mids is very subtle for an example which is why I've shown the darks. The other advantage is that I did not do this with colour for the lights because saturating the highlights removes the white and therefore the bright yellows, for example, reducing the range of colours to almost monotonous and continuous tones. Also because an area will be a range of luminance, when you adjust just one part of it you also introduce variation within that range of luminance which increases the impression of colour rather than equalising all luminance, and therefore the whole image to the same range of contrasts and therefore tones. Variations of colour in context is the key.

Now here is the image with the mid tones mask set to luminosity both hidden and revealed. I show you this so you can see the effect on colour of changing the luminosity only because luminosity is a property of colour and affects the impression of colour. With it off:

And with it on:

Though the colour does not change because the contrast changes so does the impression of colour. But please note that it is contrast in the luminosity channel only and not the contrast that links both luminosity and colour which is how the curves layer works in normal blending mode.

When using blending modes there are other things you can do that I did with this image. For instance the B&W layer is set to luminosity so it only changes the luminosity of colour and not the colour! Be careful though and try and mimic colour filters so a smooth transition between adjacent colours rather than wild and random adjustments.

 

[smoke665]

Thank you @Tim Tucker for the explanation. I have a tutorial that I've been following that explained the Highlights and Shadows pretty decent, but they switched to a hue/saturation adjustment on the midtones, which was throwing me off. I like the idea of separate adjustment layers for colors and luminosity. I'm going to experiment with that. I also notice that unlike the tutorial I've been following that you've used different anchor points on the curve (also going to try)

 

[Tim Tucker]

Thank you @Tim Tucker for the explanation. I have a tutorial that I've been following that explained the Highlights and Shadows pretty decent, but they switched to a hue/saturation adjustment on the midtones, which was throwing me off. I like the idea of separate adjustment layers for colors and luminosity. I'm going to experiment with that. I also notice that unlike the tutorial I've been following that you've used different anchor points on the curve (also going to try)

When using luminosity masks you're only selecting part of the range of luminance. Also when using multiple luminosity masks there is some overlap so you must be careful not to 'double adjust'. When adjusting a curve it is the gradient over the selection of tones that defines the contrast. If you look at the darks with reference to the tones selected then you will see a more classic shape:

N.B. I quite often do the reverse on the mid-tones luminosity and flatten the contrast with a reverse 's' curve. I'm not a great fan of the digital "push all contrast to the edges" and find a gentler gradation in mid-tones more pleasing, (it also has an effect on colour because if you push the mid-tones you also make them more white or black, less mid-tone colour ).

 

[smoke665]

@Tim Tucker - Wow, I just got done playing around with an image, and while I've still got a ways to go on the adjustments, your explanations really brought it all together for me. Thank you!!! One other question before I go. On the example above it looks like you put anchor points at the edges of the histogram rather than adjusting the sliders over. I've been adjusting the sliders am I wrong in doing this???? Or is it a matter of choice?

 

[rhodeislandhntr]

Looks great.....would love to visit a place like that someday

 

[Tim Tucker]

Adjusting the sliders sets the white and black points, what you're doing is taking the dark tones from black to grey and expanding them towards white. Not something I ever do because I don't want my mid-tone 'shadows' becoming white.

It would be an action identical to a simple levels adjustment and the advantage of curves is the curve, that I can lift some of the darker tones more than the middle tones.

 

[smoke665]

Ah, I've learned some valuable tips.