articles/Nature/scoreandperformance-page2

The Score and the Performance - part 2 of 1 2 3 4 5 6

Published 01/08/2010

Stage 1

The first area I wanted to adjust contained two 'working zones' which are the mountain flanks and the sky. When we make a selection using the lasso tool we have to commit to setting a feather size. It is worth noting two facts. The feather size is in pixels and so the size of the feather in you image will be directly proportional to the image size. For example if we set a feather of 50 pixels this feather would appear to be far larger (softer edged) in an image of 500 pixels by 500 pixels compared to an image of 5,000 pixels by 5,000. For this reason alone there is not much point in asking somebody what feather they have used for a particular selection unless their image was identical in pixel dimensions.

In this example I have made a selection of the top of the image then clicked on Quick Mask in the tools palette. What this shows is a red area and an area that look normal. The red area is protected and the curves adjustment layer will affect the area that looks normal. The transition from red to normal is he size of the feather.

Stage 2

Having seen our feather size in Quick Mask I then turned it off returning to a normal image without the red masked area and now showing the marching-ants. I then selected a curves adjustment layer from the layers palette to make my adjustment of the sky and mountain flanks.

At this stage consider it is what you want to do. The reason I made this selection with two 'working-zones' is because I wanted to darken it, overall. I could have selected each area individually but if two workingzones can be altered at the same time then this reduces the risk of the 'patchwork' effect of many different selections in one image.

I then decided on what areas of tonality I wanted to effect. Although I wanted the paler greys in the sky to be 'calmed' slightly, the most important adjustment was the deepening of the shadow values. I selected the part of the curve line that closest represented the shadow 'grey' and pushed the line upwards. (The opposite direction in RGB). As I did this I kept an eye on the image at all times. Remember to do things gradually

The next area I wanted to concentrate on was the sunlit mountain flanks. With the last adjustment curve these values had been slightly darkened by the curve, but this was essential to introduce good shadow depth. What I needed to do now was to maintain that shadow depth but bring out the sunlit highlights. I made a rough selection of the areas of the mountain flanks leaving the shadowed mountain tops alone as I was happy with their values.

It is important to not get too hung up with super-accurate selections unless absolutely necessary. I have seen many photographers with their noses almost pushed against their monitor selecting with the magic wand around every tree branch. This is of course a useful tool in some cases but I would recommend stepping back and learning about exposure control before this becomes your standard practice as the results often look odd to say the least!

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