PS Mask: A sharp weapon to solve the problem of large light ratio in landscape photography

We are shooting scenery, inevitably always encounter some large light ratio of the environment, how to solve the large light than the environment of the light and dark part of the exposure problem, I recommend a super simple method, mask, this is my solution to this problem the core means.

So now I use the most popular statement to help you thoroughly understand how the mask is made.

1. Preliminary preparation

Figure 1

Figure 2

Figure 3

First you need to take at least two different exposures, one for the ground exposure (the sky must have been exposed, no details, as shown in Figure 1), and another to expose the sky (the ground must be exposed, the dark details a dead black, as shown in Figure 2).

I think it's not hard for a friend who has a little photographic base to take such a picture. This step please use manual file exposure, do not open the surrounding exposure mode.

The idea of the latter is to keep the ground section of Figure 1 and the sky part of Figure 2 to synthesize (Figure 3), simple! Understand this step and then you can look down!

The back is started to open the PS software, the late.

2, New mask

Turn on the computer, point to PS, drag two pieces of material you've captured into it, like I do on a two-layer overlap.

Then dot my red circle to draw the small icon, at this time the layer will automatically set a white box, this is the legend of the Mask!

Add a new mask

Extended:

What is a mask? Layers, masks, channels this is the three core PS, many beginners know a layer at most, after the two are completely confused. In fact, masks are the boards that are covered with layers. Not only in PS, but also in our lives. For example, the road side often see workers sprayed with paint on the wall, first on the wall to apply a layer of carved words on the board, and then began to spray, spray the board away, the wall has a square of Chinese characters.

PS is the same as the mask, which has black and white, white represents the part of the cover, Black is hollowed out to the bottom of the section.

Of course, there is gray, is half cover and half of the meaning, the deeper the gray represents the higher the transparency, gray into black on the full. Conversely, the more shallow the gray means the less the penetration, the whole white is completely covered.

3, open the brush

Masks built we began to brush, here to remember what the idea of the brush, I will no longer repeat the review of their own.

First select the Brush tool (shortcut B or left border bar selection), press shortcut D to switch to the default Black-and-white Two-color, black as the current color, and then select the appropriate hardness and radius. Begin a rough smear of the lower part. So the second half of the photo magically brightened.

Toggle opacity and percentage of traffic

Red represents the part that is brushed

After painting and then switch the opacity and flow rate of 30% or so (the default is 100%) began to carefully brush the Boundary transition section, this step must be fine, back and forth repeatedly smear. You can use shortcut x to switch between black and white, and then keep changing the opacity and percent of traffic as needed. The small place also needs to enlarge by magnifying glass to 100%, then the brush radius is adjusted very fine, then lightly brush. It would be more convenient if I had a digital board like me.

4, the use of PS meticulous adjustment

So you get a highly tolerant composite diagram, of course, light is not enough to solve the light, but also need to fine-tune the color contrast brightness of the photos, click on the small toolbar below the black and White Circle button, select the attributes you want to adjust. Here is a demonstration of the brightness adjustment of a lower tree.

Select Curve Tool

After the curve will be found automatically added a new layer and the layer automatically with a mask, here we first raise the curve, at this time all parts of the screen will be highlighted, we do not care about the other part of the exposure, as long as the focus on the tree part can be.

Elevation curve

When you're done, click on the little mask next to the graph layer, first press ctrl+i inverse color, at this time the entire mask from white to black, the photo is also directly restored before the appearance of light, and then we pick up the brush, switch the current first for white, the tree part of the brushing, you can separate the trees to light up.

Picture description

In addition to the curve, I will also use the color and optional color, the whole picture is roughly divided into the sky, the city, the trees three parts, each part of the mask by separate to carry out the fine, so as to get the overall perfect picture.

Accidentally opened up so many layers

The late steps of the entire diagram do not use any plug-ins or HDR plug-ins, which are simply optional masks.

Category:

• PS Image Processing