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Adobe Photoshop CS4 for Photographers Tutorials
Techniques / Extended Exposure Latitude pt. 1
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Subtitles of the Movie (Adobe Photoshop CS4 for Photographers / Techniques / Extended Exposure Latitude pt. 1)
One of the things that can be very frustrating with photography, particularly outdoor photography, is that our eyes can see far more detail and highlights and shadows than what our cameras can capture in a single shot. A contrasty scene can look great to our eyes but when we try to capture it in an image suddenly the dark areas seem darker and the bright areas seem far too bright. Even worse, there doesn't appear to be any detail, or at least not enough in the highlights and shadows. This happens because cameras are limited to between five and ten stops of light depending on the capture medium, while our eyes can see many more stops. When using a single shot with a contrasty scene you often have to make a choice whether to give up detail in the highlights, the shadows, or perhaps both. By using Photoshop we can create an image with detail throughout the tonalities. Ideally there are several things you should do while taking the images. Make sure to change the shutter speed between shots and watch your histogram. Expose one so that there is no clipping in the highlights and then change the shutter speed for the next shot so that there's no clipping in the shadows. Don't change the aperture between the shots. Don't move the camera between the shots, don't change the White Balance or the focus, or the zoom. In Camera Raw make certain that Auto Adjustments are off. There are several methods we can use to combine different exposures of the same scene into one final image. For example, if you have just two images, one exposed so that there are details in the highlights and one done so that there are details in the shadows, you can drag the second image on top of the first image holding the Shift key to align them, then add a Layer Mask to the second image and paint in details where needed. That's the most basic approach and one I did in the movie on Layer Masking. A more sophisticated version of this is to have Photoshop use the lighter version of the image to create a very specific Layer Mask for the darker layer. To do this begin with two images as before: one exposed for the highlights and one for the shadows. Select the Move Tool and click on the dark image. Hold down the Shift key then click on the dark image and drag it over the light image and let go. By holding the Shift key the image will be centered. You must place the dark one on top of the light one and not vice versa. Add a Layer Mask to the dark layer by clicking on the Add a Layer Mask Icon. Make the background image active by clicking on the Background image Layer and then press Command-A on a Mac, Ctrl-A on a PC to select the entire Layer. Then press Command-C on a Mac, Ctrl-C on a PC to copy that entire Background Layer. You won't be able to see anything visibly happen when you do this yet. Now, click on the Layer Mask and then press Alt or Option and click again on the Layer Mask so a Layer Mask fills the Preview area. On a PC press Ctrl-V and on a Mac press Command-V. This is going to place a copy of your Background Layer onto the Mask, essentially creating a very detailed, customized Layer Mask for this Layer. Again, hold down the Alt or Option key and click on the Layer Mask Preview, the Thumbnail, and now you can see that the two images are combined, although they don't look very good yet. You can go to Select, Deselect or use the shortcut to deselect the layer right now. With the Mask still selected, and you can tell that because it's got the outline around it, come up to Filter, Blur, Gaussian Blur. Normally you're going to need a blur somewhere around 40. For some images you may need much less than that, and for some images you may need significantly more than that. For example, for this image I think it looks better with a much higher blur. When the image looks good click OK. You can customize this still further by going to the Brush Tool, changing the Opacity up or down as you'd like and painting with black or white to show or reveal more of the bottom layer. For example, I'm painting with a medium Opacity to reveal a little bit more of that bottom layer in this part of the image because while Photoshop has technically combined it neutrally I'd like to see this part a little bit brighter. You may also want to fine-tune the tonality of the image using a Curves Layer Adjustment if necessary. The advantage of this method over the method we used in the movie about Adjustment Layers is that we don't need to worry about painting in the window sills and that saves time on this particular image, and on others it can save tremendous time. This method works well with two images, but does not work when there are multiple images. With multiple images we're going to have to look at a different technique that I'll show you in the next movie.
Tutorial Information
| Course: | Adobe Photoshop CS4 for Photographers |
| Author: | Ellen Anon |
| SKU: | 34036 |
| ISBN: | 1-935320-74-2 |
| Release Date: | 2009-09-23 |
| Duration: | 8.5 hrs / 112 lessons |
| Work Files: |
Yes |
| Captions: | No |
| Compatibility: |
Vista/XP/2000, OS X, Linux QuickTime 7, Flash 8 |
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