Posted by Harley Goldman on January 25, 2016 at 11:34 AM
I was wondering what people are doing to get clean lines on masks. Say you have dark mountains and a much brighter sky. You want to mask the two so layers can separately be adjusted for both sky and mountains and the adjustments will be significant. Any edge issues will be extremely apparent.
Does anyone know of a good way to do it other than creating a mask either with a brush or another tool and refining the edge by hand with a brush? That method can be brutally painstaking if there are lots of rugged details in the mountains, etc.
Suggestions?
Harley
Posted by Dennis Plank on January 25, 2016 at 12:14 PM
Hi Harley. You might give Topaz Remask a try. It lets you go over the boundary with a large brush and then refine. For high contrast boundaries it's quite good without any fussing around and the adjustments are pretty smart as well. I've used it on some pretty complex boundaries in bird images and I doubt I've ever spent more than 10 minutes on even the worst case.
Posted by Wick Smith on January 25, 2016 at 12:34 PM
I'm sure someone has a better answer and more technical than I, but I've found the magic wand and/or quick selection tool does a tremendous job of selecting ares with higher contrast like you describe. There are refinement tools in PS to select more or less, refine the edge, expand or reduce the edge. There are many links on the web, including from Adobe that show how to use these tools and refine the mask without resorting to brushes. Just search on Photoshop Quick Selection Tool, and you'll find all you can stand. Good luck.
Posted by Bill Chambers on January 25, 2016 at 1:44 PM
Thanks for asking the question Harley - I fight the same battle. Will definitely look into ReMask.
Topaz Remask looks pretty good, but the price is a little steep, at least for me.
I tried Wick's suggestion to use the Quick Selection Tool. It does work, but one may still need to use "Refine Edge..." for a complex edge, e.g. trees on a ridge. Here's a tutorial from Photoshop Essentials.com that you may find useful
--P
Posted by Igor Doncov on January 25, 2016 at 3:28 PM
If there is a significant difference between the 2 sides of the edge I use a curve adjustment layer and adjust the side that needs it while keeping the other as is. Later when brushing it does not have to be accurate because you're removing part of the layer that is identical with the layer below. You can erase aggressively along the edge.
Igor, I am having difficulty understanding what you're doing here. Would you please clarify with "How-To" steps?
--P
Posted by Ed Cordes on January 26, 2016 at 10:06 AM
Here's another vote for Topaz Remask. Yes, it is not cheap, but has saved a lot of time and aggravation for me. If I use the quick selection tool instead, I generally set feather to about 2 pxls and then make the selection a separate layer. This allows me to fine tune the layer blend before flattening the final result.
Posted by Igor Doncov on January 26, 2016 at 4:53 PM
Preston, my apologies. I thought many knew this technique and did not spend enough time explaining it.
It's basically a technique of selecting one area based upon tonality. An edge implies a change in color or tone across a line. In such cases you are usually selecting one tone vs another in order to make some change.
In my experience selecting an area is never very accurate and changes made to that area leaves a halo at the edge due to imperfect selection. In this case there is no selection of one side. You make select both sides and separate the 2 with a curve adjustment. I found this on a website while looking for Charles Cramer techniques. It took me some time to find it again, but did so and here is the link - https://luminous-landscape.com/tough-selections-made-easy-a-unique-approach-to-tonal-selections/
The steps are as follows:
1. select an area using any photoshop selection tool: lasso, quick select. The area should include both sides of the edge.
2. Create an curve adjustment layer of the selected area. This should result in a histogram that has 2 peaks - one for the dark area and one for the light area.
Let's assume that you are trying to darken a sky only.
3. Adjust the curve so that the light peak in the histogram is darkened but the curve over the dark peak remains unchanged. You anchor it.
4. Create an inverted mask and brush over all of the sky AND the dark area on the other side of the edge.
Since you are removing the top dark layer to reveal a bottom dark layer that is exactly the same you are having no effect on the dark part of the image. Since no selection was made the edge remains as clean as the original image.
I use this technique to darken hot spots and skies and reflections in the water. The sky can be particularly tricky because if there is a tree in front there can be an endless number of holes where the sky peers through that need to be selected and the task becomes daunting. This technique picks up all of these holes and treats them the same.
Like I said, I figured everyone here knew of this technique and were using it. It does address the problem as I understand it.
I read over TK's tutorial, which uses his luminosity masks and Photo Shop. It requires three exposures and is a little involved, but should work nicely.
In Harley's case, the image in question was a single exposure, so TK's technique would not work, as far as I can tell.
For Igor:
In step #4 in your procedure above, you state, "Create an inverted mask and brush over all of the sky AND the dark area on the other side of the edge."
Question: To which layer is the inverted mask applied? A screen shot of your layer stack would be really helpful. Thanks.
--P
Posted by Richard Wong on February 3, 2016 at 3:57 PM
I would go with Tony Kuyper's Luminosity Mask actions. You can go with a lights or darks mask and use that selection to do your work.
Discussion
12 repliesDoes anyone know of a good way to do it other than creating a mask either with a brush or another tool and refining the edge by hand with a brush? That method can be brutally painstaking if there are lots of rugged details in the mountains, etc.
Suggestions?
Harley
I tried Wick's suggestion to use the Quick Selection Tool. It does work, but one may still need to use "Refine Edge..." for a complex edge, e.g. trees on a ridge. Here's a tutorial from Photoshop Essentials.com that you may find useful
--P
--P
It's basically a technique of selecting one area based upon tonality. An edge implies a change in color or tone across a line. In such cases you are usually selecting one tone vs another in order to make some change.
In my experience selecting an area is never very accurate and changes made to that area leaves a halo at the edge due to imperfect selection. In this case there is no selection of one side. You make select both sides and separate the 2 with a curve adjustment. I found this on a website while looking for Charles Cramer techniques. It took me some time to find it again, but did so and here is the link - https://luminous-landscape.com/tough-selections-made-easy-a-unique-approach-to-tonal-selections/
The steps are as follows:
1. select an area using any photoshop selection tool: lasso, quick select. The area should include both sides of the edge.
2. Create an curve adjustment layer of the selected area. This should result in a histogram that has 2 peaks - one for the dark area and one for the light area.
Let's assume that you are trying to darken a sky only.
3. Adjust the curve so that the light peak in the histogram is darkened but the curve over the dark peak remains unchanged. You anchor it.
4. Create an inverted mask and brush over all of the sky AND the dark area on the other side of the edge.
Since you are removing the top dark layer to reveal a bottom dark layer that is exactly the same you are having no effect on the dark part of the image. Since no selection was made the edge remains as clean as the original image.
I use this technique to darken hot spots and skies and reflections in the water. The sky can be particularly tricky because if there is a tree in front there can be an endless number of holes where the sky peers through that need to be selected and the task becomes daunting. This technique picks up all of these holes and treats them the same.
Like I said, I figured everyone here knew of this technique and were using it. It does address the problem as I understand it.
http://goodlight.us/writing/paintinghdr/paintinghdr-1.html
I read over TK's tutorial, which uses his luminosity masks and Photo Shop. It requires three exposures and is a little involved, but should work nicely.
In Harley's case, the image in question was a single exposure, so TK's technique would not work, as far as I can tell.
For Igor:
In step #4 in your procedure above, you state, "Create an inverted mask and brush over all of the sky AND the dark area on the other side of the edge."
Question: To which layer is the inverted mask applied? A screen shot of your layer stack would be really helpful. Thanks.
--P