Selections and Masks Continued
We extended using masks to more photos for this lesson. On the first two photos I used the Color Range command and then Curves (well, ok I slipped some Levels layers). On the third photo, I used masks in a slightly unusual manner.
Photo 1
This picture was taken in Bonsall, California on a very overcast but bright day. The sky was almost blown out and the features of the land fairly hazy. Click on the image to see a larger photo.
I used Color Range on the yellow tree, and added a Curves layer to brighten up and increase the contrast of the tree. Then I selected Color Range and selected the general green landscape with a range of around 80 pixels. I used this selection to add a Levels layer and brought up the contrast for the landscape. I tried a Curves layer, but found I got better results with a Levels layer, so I stuck with Levels. I used Color Range on the sky area and ran a Select > Inverse to capture the total land area, where I used a Curves layer to improve the overall contrast and colors. I inverted the selection again to get back to the sky and added a Levels layer to just slightly darken the sky. Too much use of the Levels layer on the sky would start turning the sky blue/purple. The resulting image was good but I wanted more saturation and intensity in the whole picture. So I duplicated the background layer, changed the Layer Style to Overlay and reduced the layer Opacity to 33%. That gave an image I liked.
The final version of the Bonsall, CA landscape follows. Click on the image to see a larger photo.
Photo 2
The second photo was taken during the late August afternoon in Phoenix, Arizona. The image captures a bird in flight across the evening sky. The photo is fairly good as is, but I used the Color Range tool and Curves to brighten up the image. The before photo is shown here. Click to enlarge.
I used Color Range to create selections of the darkest parts of the clouds, and added a Curves layer to improve the contrast/color. Then I used Color Range to get a selection of the medium intensity clouds. Again, I added a Curves layer and adjusted appropriate to that part of the image. I did Color Range/Curves layer again for the lightest portion of the clouds. I repeated the process for the sky, although here I darkened the sky with the Curves layer. The Layers palette is shown below.
The final image follows. Click to enlarge.
Photo 3
The final image was one I took of a clown passing quickly through the crowd during a town festival in Arizona. He did not stop for the snapshot, but I wanted to do something to isolate him from the crowd so he would stand out. It was overcast that day, and the colors were a little muted. The original photo (in it's cropped form) is shown next. Click to enlarge.
I will show the Layers palette and then explain it.
The first step I took was to use the Lasso Selection tool to draw a selection of the clown. Then I used the Polygonal Selection tool to adjust the selection until it was as close a match as I could get to the clown. I inverted the selection and added a Levels layer to capture the crowd as a selection. I called that layer "clean outline". Yes, I could have used Select > Save Selection to capture it, but I wanted the labeling capability of the layer to see what I had. Then I clicked on the mask, and applied Filter > Blur > Gaussian Blur at a blur of 2 pixels to dull the edges of the mask around the clown. I saved that blurred selection by adding a Levels layer and naming it "g blur mask 3". I did NOT adjust either Levels layer. I just used the layers to capture the masks for the crowd.
I wanted to apply the blurry selection to add a gaussian blur to the crowd. So I did a Shift + Click on the mask of the "g blur mask 3" layer. With that crowd selection active, I duplicated the background and applied a Filter > Blur > Gaussian Blur of 3 pixels to the duped layer. I renamed that layer "g blur 3 pix". The last thing I wanted to do was brighten the clown. So I Shift Clicked the mask on the "clean outline" layer and did Select > Inverse to capture the clown exactly. I added a Curves layer and applied an S-curve shape to improve the color and contrast of the clown.
The layers for the Levels layers have the Visibility eyes turned off since I only needed them for the selections. I know there are many other ways to get to the same end result, but I again had fun with this one. Here is the final version.
That's all for this week.
