Glad some of you found this useful. I'm not saying this is the end all be all of contrat adjustment...far from it. It's just another technique to put in your photoshop arsenal. No one technique is right for all images, just as no knowledge is useless.
i used other methods (like curves), but nevertheless found the suggestion interesting.
dcmiller, could you explain us what "photoshop fundamentals" are being ignored by the tip? I´m not an expert, and always looking to learn something new.
I think what you are describing and what Mahesh is trying to achive are two different things. On on ehand you are trying to adjust the contrast by contrast masking (the procedure follows) and on the other hand, Mahesh is trying to recover details in the shadows. Just one thing I want to add to Mahesh's trick, I have the layer as an 'adjustment layer'.
Yes, curves can do it too. Just that there is less 'tweaking' involved in this method. Just my ¢2...
Here is what I have done, it is supposedly a classic darkroom technique adapted for contrast enhancement--
- duplicate your active layer
- Layer desaturate to create a b/w layer
- invert the layer
- gaussian blur (of about 20-50)
- change the layer blend to luminosity
- adjust opacity to fine-tune the opacity
Again, I have both of these set as actions, and use them based upon my need. Not that I do not use the curves feature.
Very nice! It certainly works and I want to thank you for your generous contribution which I am sure is going to improve the photography of many, including me.
William Rodriguez
Miami, Florida.
That's great Mahesh - thanks for the info!
Perhaps we could have a 'Techniques' forum which would be good to find such useful information in the future?
