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Understanding Contrast Masking
Michael Reichmann has published a great article on his Luminous Landscape website which clearly explains how to use contrast masks in Photoshop to open up the shadow areas of an image. This looks like a brilliant and relatively simple technique that you will use again and again.
“Given that digital cameras have a dynamic range of 5-7 stops (about the same or slightly greater than transparency film), one often finds that the shadow areas of a frame are rendered darker than one would wish. What to do?
The solution is to use what is called a contrast mask. This is now done digitally, but it is nothing new. It’s been around since the early years of the 20th Century. This used to involve the production of a B&W negative copy of the original which was then placed in superimposition with the positive while a print was made. This caused a flattening of the contrast as shadows received extra exposure while highlights were held back.”
Website: Luminous Landscape - Understanding Contrast Masking
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Nikon Coolpix P510
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Canon PowerShot SX260 HS
Fujifilm X-Pro1
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#1 Steve Crane
Interestingly enough I created a GIMP script to create a contrast mask layer just last week. I based it on the technique in Eric Jeschke's article, Creating a contrast mask and my script can be found here.
11:06 am - Thursday, October 30, 2003
#2 Steve Crane
I meant to say that Eric's site is worth a look, particularly if you use the GIMP. He has quite a few nice articles and tutorials with examples for the GIMP. It makes a nice change not to have to try and apply the usual Photoshop slanted examples to the GIMP.
11:12 am - Thursday, October 30, 2003
#3 Mark Goldstein
Thanks for that Steve!
I don't personally use the GNU Image Manipulation Program (GIMP), but I'm sure some of my visitors do.
3:51 pm - Thursday, October 30, 2003
#4 Mark Goldstein
Deviant Art looks like quite an intriguing website by the way
And it's pretty busy...
http://photography.deviantart.com/
3:55 pm - Thursday, October 30, 2003
#5 SeanB
Just had a look at the lumious landscape article. The results are stunning, turning a drab, underexposed photo into a balanced, colourful image. Just shows how useful digital manipulation can be compared to using filters with film cameras. I don't usually do much image manipulation with PhotoShop or PaintShop Pro, other than the usual levels, contrast and unsharp mask stuff. I need to learn a bit more I think......
9:26 pm - Thursday, October 30, 2003
#6 Mark Goldstein
I'm like you SeanB - just use Photoshop to crop, tweak the levels and contrast, resize if necessary. After seeing this tutorial I might have revisit some of my images and rescue them!
6:50 pm - Friday, October 31, 2003