George, as an alternative to the gradient tool, which can be tricky, consider a ‘contrast mask’, which will balance the light and dark areas of the photo. It doesn’t work for all pictures, but I’ve found it to be a remarkable tool for saving overly contrasty pictures.
Here are the steps.
1. Open your image and have your Layers palette in view on the desktop. It should show a layer called Background
2. Duplicate the background layer (Layer>Duplicate Layer)
3. Make sure the duplicate layer is active, then do an
Image>Adjustments>Invert. The view of your image should go ‘negative’.
4. Remove the color from the duplicate layer (Enhance>Adjust Color>Remove
Color)
5. Apply a Gaussian blur of about 4 or 5 to the duplicate layer (Filter>Blur.Gaussian Blur and set value to 4 or 5)
6. Change blending mode of duplicate layer in Layers palette to Overlay.
7. Adjust opacity of duplicate layer until you get the effect that’s
pleasing to your eye.
I know it sounds like a lot of steps, but once you get used to it, it becomes second nature.
Just an alternative for you to try.
Chuck
George, I couldn’t get this same tutorial to work when I first tried it. I posted a message to this fine group of folks, and after some interesting exchanges we finally figured out that the problem was in the way that PE handles the foreground and background colors during this application of gradients. I hope I get this right because I just tried to search the archives and the search facility is not available because it’s indexing right now.
If memory serves, I believe it goes like this: If you notice, normal foreground color should be black, but while you’re in this section of the tutorial resetting the foreground and background colors results in a white foreground. This needs to be reversed before the exercise will work correctly. Try it one way and if it doesn’t work, reverse the foreground and background when you try it again. When the search facility is again available, try doing a search using "tutorial and McElderry" and you can probably find this thread. It was about 3 or 4 weeks ago.
thanks for the replies. i wasn’t able to get back on the computer yesterday to try your sugjections out and i only have a few min before work this morning but as soon as i get home i’ll give them a try and let you know how i make out. thanks again.
George, the search facilty is working this morning. The thread that I was referring to was called "Stumped In The Tutorial." I’m fairly sure that this will solve your problem.
George,
I also have Mikkel Aaland’s book and after lots of fooling around with his Mt. Shasta example I wrote step by step in my own words. Try it, maybe you missed something:
Scenario: photo has high-contrast areas which cannot be simultaneously corrected with Levels controls. Foreground is trees, background is sky/mountains. Need to lighten trees and darken sky/mountain by applying different Levels adjustments to each area.
1. Create new Levels adjustment layer and adjust to improve trees. Don’t worry about rest of picture at this time.
Turn off visibility of this layer so as not to interfere with next step.
2. Create new Levels adjustment layer and adjust to improve the sky/mountain. Don’t worry about rest of picture at this time.
3. In sky/mountain layer, create mask to block effect of Levels adjustment on trees:
Choose Gradient tool and set options
– Gradient: Foreground to Transparent (under Defaults)
– Style: Linear Gradient
– Blend mode: Normal
– Opacity: 100%
IMPORTANT!! Check Transparency box.
Set foreground to black (click Default Colors icon and click the Switch arrow).
Create mask by placing cursor at bottom of image and dragging up to top of trees (use Shift key to drag straight up).
4. Do similar thing to trees layer, to create mask to block effect of Levels adjustment on the sky/mountain.
This time create mask by dragging from top of image to bottom of mountain.
5. Fine-tune using Paintbrush or other tools to add mask to specific areas on either layer.
