Fix a blown out sky / lighten a dark foreground.

Tamron AF 28-300mm f/3.5-6.3 XR Di LD Aspherical IF for Canon

11/24/2004 09:08:10 PM · #1

I found this trick in the June 2004 edition of Popular Photography and Imaging; the article was called Horizon Harmony by Debbie Grossman. You can use this, as the my title suggests, to fix a blown out sky or lighten a dark foreground. Here's my take on it for PhotoShop and Elements:

Step 1. Open your image. From drop down menu, select Layer > New Adjustment Layer. Choose Levels. Rename the layer Sky. Move the Black slider until you get your sky the way you want it. You can also adjust the center slider to tweak the effect. Click OK and then the eye icon to hide the layer.

Step 2. Create another adjustment layer and name it Ground. Move the white slider to the left until you get your foreground the way you want. As mentioned in Step 1, the middle slider can be used to tweak the result. Be careful not to blow out highlights.

Step 3. Choose the gradient tool, Foreground to Transparent, Linear Gradient, and Normal Blend mode at 100% opacity. Make sure your foreground colour is black and your background colour is white.

Step 4. Make your Sky adjustment layer the active layer and with the Shift key held down, draw a line from the bottom of the image to the top. The length of the line and where it is drawn on the image determines the amount of effect you produce. Experiment. Always undo if you don't get the effect you want because the gradient tool can have a cumulative effect.

Step 5. Make your Ground adjustment layer the active layer and this time, draw your line from top to bottom. Again, remember, the length of the line and where it is drawn on the image, determines the amount of effect you produce.

Step 6. If you are satisfied with the result flatten the image and save.

Here's an example, albeit not a great masterpiece:

Before

After

Message edited by author 2004-11-24 21:08:52.

kirbic

Canon EOS R5

Canon RF 24-70 f2.8 L IS

11/24/2004 09:30:22 PM · #2

Quicker way to achieve the same:

- Open image, hit "q" to enter quick mask mode
- Draw your gradient, bottom-to-top. make it thinner or thicker, depending on how sharp you want the transition
- hit "q" again (exit quick mask mode) and apply curves, etcl to get the sky right
- select/inverse and repeat for foreground.

SDW

Canon EOS-60D

11/24/2004 09:34:45 PM · #3

Thank you for posting this. I have just such a photo I want to work on using this technique. I will post later tonight [before and after] please let me know what you think.
Again thanks for the tip. And is Popular Photography and Imaging a good book/magazine to subscribe too. If they have tips like this I would like to subscribe.
Scott W.

11/24/2004 09:37:20 PM · #4

Originally posted by SDW65:

Yes, I really like the mag. I buy it all the time - maybe I should subscribe - would be cheaper. Please do post your before and after.

Nikon AF Nikkor 50mm f/1.8D

11/24/2004 09:40:01 PM · #5

Originally posted by kirbic:

Too bad Elements doesn't have quick mask (atleast I don't think so). q brings up the sponge tool. :)

deapee

Kodak V803

11/24/2004 09:52:01 PM · #6

Wow, that after image looks really good...I'm gonna try this if I become un-lazy some time tonight.

Falc

Canon EOS-1D Mark III

Canon EF 16-35mm f/2.8L USM

11/25/2004 01:44:07 AM · #7

Example

Heres an example of taking two images, one exposed for ther sky, one exposed for the foreground and using the quick mask and grad to merge the two.

pitsaman

Canon EOS-30D

Canon EF 50mm f/1.8 II

11/25/2004 02:33:29 AM · #8

Ok,it worked :-)

suemack

Canon EOS-20D

Sigma 18-200mm f/3.5-6.3 DC OS for Canon

11/25/2004 04:36:01 AM · #9

been trying to lighten the foreground in this shot w/out losing the blue of the sky.....not having a lot of luck. Tried the gradient tool but that didn't seem to work. Pic was taken very late afternoon and there are a lot of shadows on the foreground. Anything else I could try?

thanks
sue

Moose101

Canon EOS-350D Rebel XT

11/25/2004 08:16:02 AM · #10

Originally posted by orussell:

I found this trick in the June 2004 edition of Popular Photography and Imaging ... ...

Before and After ... more like mid-vote and high-vote. I've been looking at the two before and after photos and all I can say is the difference is just amazing. I'll have to give that a go in the next day or two, since I'm a newbie to PS I don't think I'll get the same final image but I'm going to try it using your Before Image first ... just to see if I can do it. Thanks for the post this will help.

Originally posted by kirbic:

Quicker way to achieve the same....

I'll have to try this also...

Thanks for sharing.

11/25/2004 09:42:12 AM · #11

Bump for the day crowd (or night crowd, depending on where you live). Please post your examples using this technique if you have any to share.

Canon EF-S 17-55mm f/2.8 IS USM

11/25/2004 10:09:22 AM · #12

Originally posted by suemack:

Here are two very simple PS techniques.

The first is to
1 duplicate the layer
2 reverse it (ctr+i)
3 blur that a little (in this image, I used 4px)
4 blend mode: either overlay, softlight, or hardlight (I used softlight here)

Depending on the image, you'll want to adjust the % of overlay. This process took me about a minute.

Technique number two uses selectively applied tone curves.

1 click on the tone curve adjustment icon layer
2 pull the curve until you're happy with the effect on one part of the image. (I darkened the sky and slightly increased the blue channel in tones.)
3 Reverse that (ctr+i) which effectively takes you back to the original state, but now you're working on a mask
4 making sure that your colours are b&w, paint in the areas you want altered. You'll need to select an appropriate brush, smaller areas for the more detailed parts. But as you'll blur the mask (see 5), you don't need to be so accurate. Anyway, if you do want to be more precise, you can always work on the mask later.
5 blur that quite a lot (I used 20px here)

Repeat these steps for any other adjustments you want. I did this twice: once for the sky and once for the foliage. Here's a screen shot of the layers palatte.

And here's the image.

This took all of 3 minutes. I then decided to do another one combining the two techniques. Here's the final image.

RUEDISCHMUTZ

Canon EOS-40D

11/25/2004 10:10:49 AM · #13

This is a very interesting discussion here. Definitively, I will try the method very soon.
My question however is: will these "modifications" still conform to the DPChallenge rules ???

terje

Apple iPhone

11/25/2004 10:12:30 AM · #14

Under advanced yes, but not basic.

11/25/2004 10:13:07 AM · #15

Originally posted by RUEDISCHMUTZ:

This is a very interesting discussion here. Definitively, I will try the method very soon.
My question however is: will these "modifications" still conform to the DPChallenge rules ???

The methods I described are acceptable only under the member challenge rule set, not under basic editing as they involve adjustments to only selected parts of the image.

11/25/2004 10:14:17 AM · #16

Originally posted by terje:

Under advanced yes, but not basic.

You beat me by 37 seconds. And your answer was more succinct.

gaurawa

Canon EOS-5D Mark II

11/25/2004 11:59:44 AM · #17

Originally posted by Falc:

Example

Heres an example of taking two images, one exposed for ther sky, one exposed for the foreground and using the quick mask and grad to merge the two.

The example in the link is really good, but I am not very familiar with masks. Can you provide some more details on how to do it ?
thanks,
Gaurawa

gaurawa

Canon EOS-5D Mark II

11/25/2004 12:00:57 PM · #18

Originally posted by suemack:

If you are using Photoshop CS, then use the shadow/highlight correction.

mariomel

Canon EOS-5D

Canon EF 16-35mm f/2.8L USM

11/25/2004 12:38:42 PM · #19

I use the technique described as digital blending: //www.luminous-landscape.com/tutorials/digital-blending.shtml

I use a slightly modified format, in order to make it DPC legal. I use the layer mask option but work only from one single image. I create two layers and adjust levels of each to create my dark and light layers. After the initial process, I can tweak it but erasing on the mask adjust the effect.

I find this technique works very well. I've used it on many of my images lately, mostly just to increase the dynamic range of the images.

Falc

Canon EOS-1D Mark III

11/25/2004 01:15:56 PM · #20

Originally posted by gaurawa:

Originally posted by Falc:
Example

Heres an example of taking two images, one exposed for ther sky, one exposed for the foreground and using the quick mask and grad to merge the two.

The example in the link is really good, but I am not very familiar with masks. Can you provide some more details on how to do it ?
thanks,
Gaurawa

Gaurawa, the technique is so simple it almost illegal (actually it is illegal on DPChallenge).

Open the two photos in PS, each in a new window, lets call them 'sky' and 'land'.
Select>All from the sky photo and Edit>Copy
Paste this into the land photo as a second layer

The image now has a sky layer and a land layer.
In the layers pallette ensure you have the top layer selected and click the mask button (at the bottom of the layers pallette, a square with a circle in it.
This places a layer mask on the second layer.
Whilst the layer mask is active ensure you have a black background colour and a white foreground colour set on the colour picker.
Choose the gradient tool and apply a black white grad to the layer mask.

Done.

The mask allows the bottom layer to show through where the mask is white, but keeps the top layer visible where the mask is black.

The two images obviously have to be taken on a tripod because thay have to be identical in order to sit on top of each other.

Hope that helps

Message edited by author 2004-11-25 13:17:46.

gaurawa

Canon EOS-5D Mark II

11/25/2004 01:42:11 PM · #21

Originally posted by Falc:

Originally posted by gaurawa:

Originally posted by Falc:
Example

Heres an example of taking two images......

....Can you provide some more details on how to do it ?
thanks,Gaurawa

Gaurawa, the technique is so simple it almost illegal (actually it is illegal on DPChallenge).
...................
Hope that helps

Thanks Keith, that worked.
I was trying something on the lines of creating a quick mask ( using q ) and then copy the selected area and pasting it over the other image.

Mario, thanks for the link, I tried the second method in the link that you sent using "the layer mask" and it worked great too.

suemack

Canon EOS-20D

11/25/2004 01:57:43 PM · #22

Thankyou :) :) .....have been trying to figure out how to do that w/out success. I'm using ps7.

Another thread to add to my watched threads so I can find this very useful info later. Cool forum feature!!

sue

11/25/2004 07:20:47 PM · #23

Originally posted by Falc:

Gaurawa, the technique is so simple it almost illegal (actually it is illegal on DPChallenge).

A DPC-legal version of this can be done within narrower boundaries.

Using the same RAW file,

1 open it with the exposure compensation as high as you can get it to get maximum definition in the shadows
2 duplicate the image and close the original without saving
3 re-open the original with the exposure compensation as low as you can get it to get maximum detail in the bright areas
4 duplicate the image and close the original without saving

You now have your two photos for your workbench. As the original file is a single shot, this technique is legal under the advanced rules set.

suemack

Canon EOS-20D

11/26/2004 05:15:22 AM · #24

first attempt using the foreground/background layers then the gradient tool. Photo was taken at a resthome where we do a visiting program with the dogs ........called 'puppy love'

original

edited

sue