Upper California Coastline

[Chris Calohan]

I am currently learning new processes in Photoshop using selective masking techniques. It is an arduous journey in which for every right pathway there are 40 more just as right, or perhaps even righter. Eventually, I hope to pare these down so the road to Grandma's isn't so long.

In the meantime, from time to time, I will submit a work which uses several of these techniques and ask for evaluations. In this image, Upper California Coastline, I want the evaluation to look at the sharpness which has been obtained using a mask that eliminates the sky, much of the water and much of the sand. I also used a variety of curve selections, levels, HSB and vibrance selections to work with the overall color and tonal balance.

So, what looks good and what does not?

I've included a url link to a flickr image so it can be observed larger than this forum likes.

http://www.flickr.com/photos/54965930@N07/9501954279/sizes/o/in/photostream/​

And a detail selection of the image:

http://www.flickr.com/photos/54965930@N07/9502022047/sizes/c/in/photostream/​

 

[Chris Calohan]

Arrrggghhhh, just saw the haloes but they are quite marginal on the original. Since this is a working image, I won't fret much over it now but as I continue to work with images, I will endeavor to disappear them first.

 

[Asher Kelman]

I am currently learning new processes in Photoshop using selective masking techniques. It is an arduous journey in which for every right pathway there are 40 more just as right, or perhaps even righter. Eventually, I hope to pare these down so the road to Grandma's isn't so long.

In the meantime, from time to time, I will submit a work which uses several of these techniques and ask for evaluations. In this image, Upper California Coastline, I want the evaluation to look at the sharpness which has been obtained using a mask that eliminates the sky, much of the water and much of the sand. I also used a variety of curve selections, levels, HSB and vibrance selections to work with the overall color and tonal balance.

So, what looks good and what does not?

I've included a url link to a flickr image so it can be observed larger than this forum likes.

http://www.flickr.com/photos/54965930@N07/9501954279/sizes/o/in/photostream/​

And a detail selection of the image:

http://www.flickr.com/photos/54965930@N07/9502022047/sizes/c/in/photostream/​

Chris,

I commend you efforts with masks. To me that's important to really get the most out of our attempts at making remarkable images form good picture taking outings. I'm not at all concerned by the white halos as that's just an error in processing and would be corrected once you sharpen as advised by Bart Van der Wolf, (Bart_van_der_Wolf), Nicolas Claris or Cem Usakligil, (Cem_Usakligil). Do a search here on sharpening.

Asher

 

[Maggie Terlecki]

I would say for most sharpening of images using masks, you don't sharpen everything and then mask out what you don't want sharpened.

The proper way to do it to avoid any halos fill the mask with black to start, so you bring everything back to it's normal state. To create a black mask easily, just hold ALT while clicking the layer mask. Then just bring the sharpness back where you want it and to the degree you want it.

My regular procedure is bring the entire image to where you want it before the extra sharpening. Then, duplicate your layer, add a high pass filter, the layer will look grey, but you will be able to see how strong the sharpening will be. It will differ depending on subject and of course, the size of your image. Then set that layer to a blending mode. Many people use overlay, but I find that too strong. I mostly use soft-light. I then mask everything out with black and then bring it back just where I want it with white.

If you are interested, I did a youtube video on how to do it. It may interest you. At the very least, you get to hear my voice! :-D

Selective details and sharpening in Photoshop