A Trick with PS Layers

Recently, I had an image of Sweetgum trees with lots of light-toned yellow and red leaves. I used a TK V4 Lights-1 mask on a Levels layer and adjusted it. I was not happy with the light tones, and further adjustment on that layer did not help. So, I decided to create a copy of the Lights-1 layer. Upon creating the layer copy, the lights were too bright, so I adjusted the high values, only, leaving the mids and darks alone. That worked out very well.

Here is the procedure...

1. Create a Levels layer, Call it 'Layer 1' and adjust it. You can keep the Blending Mode set to Normal, or set the Blending Mode to Luminosity**
2. Create a copy of Layer 1. It is best that it should be next in the layer stack.
3. Adjust the copy to suit.

Notes:

• In order for this trick to work, you must adjust the original layer.
• This trick will also work on a Curves layer.
• ** Setting the Blending Mode to 'Luminosity' will not affect color when you adjust the levels, or the curve.
• It is not necessary to have a layer mask on the original layer.
• One of the advantages of TK's masks is that you can make very radical adjustments to the Levels or Curves layer without causing radical changes to the image.

 The next post shows a screen shot of the Layer properties for both Levels layers.

I hope you find this tip useful.
--P

The image on the left is the first layer in the stack, and the image on the right is the next layer in the stack. The 'Blending Mode' for each layer is set to 'Normal'.

Note that only the high values were adjusted in the Lights-1 Copy layer.
--P

Thank you Preston!   That’s very useful to know. I have struggled with things like that as well

Hey Preston,

Happy Thanksgiving!  Speaking of giving, thanks for posting the PS tip.  I was going to email you, but thought I would post here so more folks could see.

I get the reasoning behind this and the results with your fall leaf image speaks for itself.

Of course various techniques are image independent and we should use if needed.  My question is when you move the highlight slider (or shadow for that matter) well in to the curve/histogram, what are the consequences of this?  for eg. moving the slider down to 180.  My understanding has always been that the histogram data gets compressed from a value of 0 - 255 to more condensed 0 - 147 (in your first example above, shadow at 33, highlight 180, the difference 147.)  Second question, there's no data/info lost from the image, right?  It's just compressed in a smaller space?

In many images those would be extreme adjustments, but again, it's image independent.

Just curious about this. But I will definitely keep this in the tool box.  Thanks!

Lon

You write :

Upon creating the layer copy, the lights were too bright, so I adjusted the high values, only, leaving the mids and darks alone

But the histogram that adjusts the lights has also modified the midtone peaks and even the dark tone peaks. It doesn't seem as though the targeting is that precise. Actually, it may work so well because it isn't precise.

 

Lon and Igor:

I opened the master file in Photoshop. I turned the Lights-1 Copy layer off and on a few times to see the effect. There is a very slight change in overall contrast in the leaves, but the greatest effect is in the high end of the scale, which is what I wanted.

Lon, I do not know if there is any data loos. If there is, it is insignificant.

Igor, as you stated, there is a slight change in the darks and mids.

We need to keep in mind that these layers, and thus the histograms are from TK masks, and are thus targeting specific tonal ranges. Such radical adjustments are possible in this case, as there are with all of TK's masks. Radical adjustments such as the ones I have done here would not be possible on a layer without such masking.

Perhaps Tony himself, or Keith Bauer could weigh in here on the more technical aspects of what is happening. all I know is...that it works.

--P

Preston:

In the first layer (Lights-1), you are instructing PS to remap the tones in the image as follows:
Tones with a value of 180 have now been remapped to 255
Tones with a value of 33 have now been remapped to 0
The tiny tweek of the midtones value pushes the midtone values down (darker) just a bit

Adding the second layer does the same thing with its' respective values.

You will lose a bit of detail in the image, but at jpeg sizes and compression, probably not noticeable.
Rather than create a duplicate of the Lights-1 layer, it would be preferable to create a new TK layer mask.  Duplicating the layer is going to use the same mask and assume the same tonal values, which is obviously not the case after the adjustments made to the Lights-1 layer.  

I would have created a new TK mask that targets the desired tones and used that to continue the adjustments to the lighter values.  It would have been a more targeted adjustment.  

Obviously a lot more than 1 way to achieve a goal in PS, but I generally don't like pushing the values quite so far into an existing histogram.  

Hi Keith,

Thanks for the explanation. That helps.

I like your idea to generate a new mask that targets the desired tones. I will try that when I have an issue similar to the one that inspired my tip.

--P