RustyBug Offline Upload & Sell: On
|
Under Layers> Fx> Blending Options>Blend If
The sliders range from 0-255 so you can allow the entire range to be applied, or you can restrict different portions. Also, you can select different channels @ R,G,B (composite gray showing in example) to restrict the effects of the layer to each channel independently (all, some, none, gradient, hard stop, etc.).
In the image below, look at the levels layer. It has an aggressive change moving the right hand slider from 255 to 95 which is adding a lot to the image. But, in doing so, it lifted the shadows and created some artifacts in the lower tonal values.
So, using the "Blend If", I move my sliders so that the instructions from the levels layer would NOT apply to anything below 31 ... and then gradiently be applied between 31-90 ... and fully applied from 90-254, and gradiently applied between 254-255. NOTE: a gradient between 254-is meaningless, I just didn't get the split slider put all the way back to 255 and didn't notice till I'd already posted this.
The meat of this is that I made a levels change to the mids and highs (90-255), and none to the blacks (0-31) ... gradiently transitioning between the two (31-90). In that manner, I can restrict where I want the changes to occur.
This can be done for each layer independently ... i.e. you can dial it in pretty good to put things where you want them. Combine that with the opacity % for the level as a whole and you can get pretty fine control over things. Not exactly a "Click Here, PS does it all for you" convenience, but once you get the hang of it (still working on that part myself regarding this layer vs. underlying layer utilization), it does give you more control than a global adjustment.
This is kind of where "technical meets fiddling" for me. I can know numerically what I want I think I want ... but getting there can be a bit too harsh a transition. I use the "blend if" in concert with masking to try and get where I want to be without it being OBVIOUS that I was ratcheting things around. Sometimes I do better than other times at this, sometimes, not so much.
HTH
|