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Masking adjustments
Apply adjustments selectively to different parts of the image
The techniques
The sample images for these tutorials are available for download as a zipped folder.
Please note. The images in this tutorial section are for personal non commercial teaching use only. If you are a school or other public educational establishment, you may use them as long as you inform Northlight Images of the use. They may not be used in -any- other way without the express consent of Northlight Images - see our usage and copyright page for more information.
Feedback is always welcome! ---
Northlight Images also provides commercial photography training courses for businesses, including specialist Photography training for Estate Agents and for Product Photography.
A powerful feature of using layers is that you can mix them and selectively apply (mask) them
Open the image Masked Levels.jpg
Rotate and zoom to fit it all in view
The image has good detail but the foreground is too dark.
Look at its histogram
There is a dark bit and a light bit to the image.
Open a levels adjustment layer and try some adjustments to the settings
Notice that if you get the sky right, the foreground is wrong and vice versa
By masking the layers you can do both, but it takes practice not to show the join
Adjust the levels until the foreground is OK – notice how the sky is burnt out
The layers palette shows a blank white box where the levels layer has a mask
Where it is white the adjustment is applied, and where it is black it is not. The mask allows you to decide where you want the adjustment to take effect. At the moment it is all white, so the adjustment is being applied to the whole image. What we need to do is to stop the adjustment being applied to the sky.
Select the brush tool at a reasonable size and make sure that Black is your foreground painting colour.
Also make sure that the levels layer is hi-lighted as above – lest you paint on the actual image.
The small squares in the left hand corner show that black is selected as the current foreground colour, which is what we will apply to the mask with the brush.
Now ‘paint’ in the sky
Notice how your ‘painting’ appears in the mask view and the painted areas revert to the unadjusted (darker) levels
If you want to erase some of the mask, switch to white and paint it out. A quick way to switch is to click on the little double arrow next to the paint colour squares - it swaps the foreground and background colours)
The tricky part is the edge of the hills. You can turn down the paint opacity to paint in light grey.
You can build up the amount of masking gradually this way
This allows a more delicate gradation between the masked and unmasked areas
For an example of this file with adjustments in place open Masked levels.psd in the zipped collection of files
By adjusting for just one part of a picture and masking it out you can selectively apply alterations to parts of a picture. You can have multiple layers, each with different adjustments. For an example look at the Cloud City Coffee House picture. To get the lighting right this image has nearly a dozen different adjustment layers...
There is an example of masked adjustment layers in the article about visiting Colorado in May 2006. The layers are curves in this case, but if you look at the masks you can see what has been done.
The techniques
The sample images for these tutorials are available for download as a zipped folder.
Please note. The images in this tutorial section are for personal non commercial teaching use only. If you are a school or other public educational establishment, you may use them as long as you inform Northlight Images of the use. They may not be used in -any- other way without the express consent of Northlight Images - see our usage and copyright page for more information.
Feedback is always welcome! ---
Northlight Images also provides commercial photography training courses for businesses, including specialist Photography training for Estate Agents and for Product Photography.
Other areas of our site that may be of interest...
NEW -- Create your own customised A3 size wall calendar from a choice of 90 of Keith's images. Choose your own images for your own custom printed calendar - 12 months starting any month of the year - many all new images not yet in our main gallery.
Digital Black and White. Keith was recently interviewed about digital black and white photography for a magazine article. We have an expanded version here covering some of his thoughts, techniques and tips for those thinking of trying black and white.
As well as our Commercial Photography services and Training there is a growing collection of photography Articles and Reviews on the site aimed at helping you get the best out of your own photography. We also have a growing collection of Photography related information and links that we hope you find useful.
New site features and some of Keith Cooper's latest work are always covered in the What's New page.
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