Everyday Photoshop Magic : Layers

 Nellie Beyond the Wall, Sort of

Layers and Masks
I have said many times before, I live and die by Photoshop.  This remarkable program rescued me from the my dank, fume infested wet darkroom and opened a new world of possibilities to bring my images to their best.  There are many great books and tutorials about Photoshop but I want to talk briefly about a few of the essential elements of the program which make it such a revolutionary and essential part of my creative work.  I have kept up with the latest versions of Photoshop including the cloud based Photoshop CC.  The newest flashy features are always fun to play with, but the continuing strength of the program has much more to do with the long established tools that have been refined over the years, but in their simplest form remain the core of this magical window on photography.  My goal is not to provide detailed tutorials, but to help those unfamiliar with the program to develop an appreciation of its power and to understand why it is worth the effort to incorporate it into their creative process.  Full versions of Photoshop come with a substantial sticker shock, but most of what I will be discussing can be done in Photoshop Elements and a variety of other editing programs for a substantially reduced cost.   So I must start this discussion with Layers.




Layers
 Off all the tools in Photoshop, Layers is the most essential to my work and it was one of the most difficult to fully understand.  The learning curve for Photoshop can be quite steep.  It took me three passes at the program before it finally clicked.  I started with a tutorial book and then a coarse at my local college - nothing!  Finally I found a book by Ben Willmore that got me going and I haven't stopped learning since.  This program is so broad and deep, that I am convince that no one can ever truly understand it all, but you don't need to be a master to reap much of Photoshop's amazing power. Layers is a key part of that power.

Layers are used in the editing process to add picture components or processing to the original background image.  They are most often compared to placing a transparent sheet over a picture on which an images may be place to overlie a portion our a substantial amount of the original picture,  or on which processing can be applied to affect the underlying image.  These are referred respectively as Image Layers and Adjustment Layers.

Layer Stack.  Adjustments only where they are needed

Image Layers
An Image Layer contains image material, actual pixels, which are laid down above the original image.  Top layers are always seen as overlying and obscuring those below, and in regions where the image layer is blank, the underlying picture will show through. 

Adjustment Layers
Adjustment layers work in the same way as Image Layers but they contain processing instructions rather than pixels. An Adjustment

Adjustment Layers

layer may be used to modify the appearance of the underlying image layer(s) in a broad range of ways.  Brightness and contrast can be adjusted using tools including Levels, Curves, Brightness and Contrast.  Color quality and balance can be controlled by Vibrance, Hue & Saturation,  Photo Filter, Black & White and Color Balance tools. The major advantage of making these changes on an Adjustment layer is that the underlying image remains untouched and modifications can be added, removed, or modified at any point during processing.  The real power of adjustment layers is the ability to control them, to apply just the amount of affect you want just where you want it, and that is the magic of Layer Masks.

Layer Masks
Layer Masks are not actual independent layers but are best thought of as a window placed over an Image or Adjustment Layer to control how it is seen.  The basic rule is, "White reveals, Black conceals".  When an Adjustment Layer is created you will see a

Windows on the Layers

white box just to the right of the layer's icon.  This is the layer mask.  It starts all white, like a clear window, meaning that the full effect of the layer is being applied to the entire image.  The mask can be painted with black which, like blackening a window, will block the Adjustment Layer from affecting the underlying parts of the image.  If it is entirely black the adjustment will have no effect anywhere.  The masking does not have to be "all or none".  Painting with shades of gray will partially reveal the effect and the masks overall impact can be also be varied using the Opacity slider. 

Enough! I promised that this would not be a detailed tutorial.  Lets look at a quick example of the power of layers.  I have concluded that my images have too few pictures of our dog Nellie, so why not add her in.

Background Layer : Marlborough, NH

Nellie, Source Image

Nellie Beyond the Wall, Compositing the Pooch.

Image Layer of Nellie

I decided to add an image of Nellie behind the wall in an early autumn picture from Marlborough, New Hampshire.  Of course, I
would never do this in my work, but anything for my readers. I found a picture of her from a maple sugaring shoot I did a couple of years ago that I thought would work for this exercise. I adjusted the size and then moved a cropped version over to my background image.  This automatically created an Image Layer overlying the background.  Unlike Adjustment Layers, Image Layers do not have layer masks when they are created, but a mask is just one click away.  I then removed all the extraneous parts of the image layer by painting the mask with black over everything that wasn't Nellie, and over the parts of  her that belonged behind the wall.  

Curves Adjustment Layer with Mask

Shezam!, she was, magically transported in time and space, but she didn't look quite right.  She was too bright for the shadowy area under the tree.  The color balance was a bit off, especially in her excessively red whiskers. The scene was illuminated from the left, but Nellie's face was brighter on the right. I corrected all of these problems, then subtly brightened her eyes and added a bit of spotlighting with separate adjustment layers, each masked to apply the changes just to where they were needed.





 



The Stack

Full Layer Stack

The result is a stack of layers which selectively fine tune the composite to help Nellie slip into the scene.  It's not perfect, but I hope it demonstrates just a few of the advantages of layers and layer masks.  A full discussion of the how layers are created and manipulated would require a substantial book and I am still trying to grasp all of it's subtleties.  It is just one of the reasons that I find Photoshop endlessly fascinating and powerful, and why, if you haven't already, you should explore all the power of this amazing tool.


This week I have been experimenting with video screen capture to augment some of my articles.  Check out my first attempt which is a short video successively revealing the effect of the layers in my example.  I've got a lot to learn with this, so let me know what you think.    




 Video Screen Capture also on YouTube
Anybody know how to make the thumbnails for other video disappear from the end of the my video?


Jeffrey Newcomer
Partridgebrookreflections.com

Taming the HDR Beast

HDR ..................................................................................Blending

HDR Blending
I have never been a big fan of heavily tone-mapped HDR images, but I appreciate that it is all a matter of taste. I frequently use various post processing techniques to expand the dynamic range of my pictures, but I draw my personal line somewhat short of "cartoonish", “painterly” processing. I want my viewers to see the image as I saw the scene and, at most, ask “Did you use HDR?” and not exclaim “WOW, you really used HDR”. When using HDR programs such as Photomatix or Photoshop’s HDR Pro, I often struggle to keep the effects under control and I find that a level of tone-mapping that works well in one part of the image may be over the top in another. Increasingly I have been using image blending to manage my HDR work. The techniques are simple and provide almost infinite control over the impact of HDR and tone-mapping. 



Enhancing the Depth
Last week I got out early to catch the effect of the morning fog on the

Westmoreland Fog

early spring colors. In Westmoreland, NH, I found a nice composition with the hay wagon sitting expectantly in a pasture and the classic red barn seen on the hill above. The arrangement provided a nice sense of depth with the fog having a much stronger softening influence on the distant barn. I liked the image but I felt the effect would be stronger if I could enhance the crispness of the wagon. Enter tone-mapping. 



Given the soft light, high contrast was not an issue, so I had no need for HDR techniques to capture the full dynamic range. I didn’t capture multiple bracketed images, but I could enhance tonal contrast by applying tone-mapping to a single image. In Photoshop, I processed the image to get the best result using my standard techniques. I didn’t want to punch up the colors and contrast too much and thereby loose the soft feel of the mist, but I felt that objects in the foreground, especially the hay wagon, could benefit from crisper detail. After I was happy with the base picture, I duplicated

Tone-Mapped Crazy

and flattened the image and then opened it in Photoshop’s Tone-mapping tool. A full discussion of the use of this tool is beyond the scope of this article and also pretty much beyond the scope of my expertise. Suffice it to say that my usual approach is to

play around with the sliders until I feel I have a good result or become frustrated and chuck the whole thing. Typically I end up with something that is dramatic but beyond what I would generally feel comfortable with as a reasonably natural representation of the scene. At this point, instead of giving up in despair, I often use image blending to mute the tone-mapping effect. 

Tome-Mpped Layer at 25% Opacity & Masked

 In this case, I copied the tone mapped layer to the top of the layer stack of the original. Proper alignment was not a problem given that the two layers were from the same image. I then was able to adjust the opacity of the overlying tone mapped layer to get just the amount of enhance contrast that I wanted in the foreground elements. This global adjustment resulted in excessive contrast in the distant background, especially the misty barn. By painting with black on the mask layer I was able completely remove the tone-mapping effect from areas of the background enhancing the sense of depth in the image. 

Blended Image

Blending together a tone-mapped and regular image allows full control of the amount and location of the enhanced effects. Various levels of HDR/Tone-Mapping can be painted in by applying different levels of gray to the layer mask. White reveals all, but middle gray shows only a partial effect and because all the work occurs on the mask you can adjust and modify as much as you want. In this picture I used a single Tone-Mapped image but a bracketed, multi-image HDR layer works just as well. 


Scott Farm Rainbow

Scott Farm Rainbow

In another example I worked on an image from a wedding at the Scott Farm in Dummerston, Vermont.  The union was blessed by a beautiful

Over the Top

rainbow.  I captured the color with the farm and a classic truck in the foreground, but I thought the truck was a bit dull and flat.  At home, I created a tone-mapped version.  I typically go a bit heavy with the toning, since I know it will be muted in post.  Again, I modified the effect with opacity and then use a mask to apply it only to the tuck.  I had a great time adjusting the opacity to find the right amount of enhancement and I still may mute it a bit further.

Tone-Mapped Truck

So get out there and HDR your brains out.  Not to worry, you can always calm the craziness with a little gentle blending.


Jeffrey Newcomer
Partridgebrookreflections.com