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Steve Smith
03-07-2015, 02:41 AM
149978

I applied the Tony Kuyper luminosity masking here. Made three separate luminosity selections for highlights, midtones and shadows. Saved each one as an alpha channel and then created a cutout for each selection and stored these cutouts as separate layers. Then processed each cutout individually and turned all three layers on to make the final image. Comments and thoughts appreciated.

Steve Smith

Don Railton
03-07-2015, 04:25 AM
Hi Steve.

This looks pretty good to me... Compositionally I might have taken a few steps closer to the river to make a bit more of it as a lead, but it still works as it is, for me anyway... From a processing point of view the masking looks transparent to me, so well done, although I do wonder about that shadow on the ridgeline LH side. I'm going to call it vegetation as opposed to poor masking... I also think you could selectively sharpen the FG a little more...

regards

DON

Steve Smith
03-07-2015, 02:39 PM
Hi Don,

This shot was taken in the welsh part of Canada - cloudy and the cloud is spilling over the back wall of the cwm to give an ambiguous edge to the mask. I have attached the three tonal cutouts as they appear after some processing for brightness, contrast, vibrance, sharpening etc. The first one is the highlights:

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The next one is the mid tones:

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and this one below is the shadows.

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The final munched together image is the result of turning on each cutout.

Steve Smith

Diane Miller
03-07-2015, 10:51 PM
A very pleasant composition and the soft light fits it well. Interesting to see the masks. I'm not clear -- are the cutouts from different exposures, or just different adjustments of one exposure?

I'm wondering how it would look with the distant hills having a little more contrast (or detail), the FG brighter and the sky darker. But I guess one could go nuts fiddling with tonalities.

Unfortunate about the blown out area in the sky -- no way to salvage that from a lower exposure?

Dvir Barkay
03-08-2015, 12:42 AM
Interesting photo. The clouds are too bright, but I assume that to expose of the foreground that was a compromise made. The colors are a bit funny on my monitor, to saturated for my taste. I think that it is a nice idea, with some working components, but it does have a couple items that slightly detract.

Steve Smith
03-08-2015, 01:03 AM
Hi Diane,

The cutouts are all from a single exposure. The blown highlights in the sky are somewhat retrievable. I also added detail to the Cwm walls and lightened the foreground. With these luminosity masks there infinite combinations of tones are possible. I think it comes down to preserving one's feel of a location. I agree with Dvir Barkay about the vibrance and I reduced that a bit. In my time I have spent many days in and around Cwm Idwal and it is often a place of soft light, moist air, wet ground and cloudy skies. It's heavily glaciated country with u- shaped valleys, truncated spurs and side glaciers, A cwm is a cirque.

Here is another iteration of the image.

Steve Smith

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Dvir Barkay
03-08-2015, 01:10 AM
Its better, but something is still funny with the image, especially the foreground. I am and do help other people (even some on here) with editing in my free time, so if you want to shot me an email and I can help and look at the image. Just send me a message at barkaydvir@yahoo.com

Diane Miller
03-08-2015, 10:24 AM
This is much more to my liking. I often find the adjustments in soft light to be difficult decisions.

Morkel Erasmus
03-09-2015, 03:33 PM
A nice scene Steve, not unlike some areas in the part of South Africa where I live.
Interesting to note your approach with cut-out luminosity selections. I merely blend them based on tonality and blend options in the layer window. Different strokes eh.
I do agree with Dvir there is something funky going on with your masking, especially in the FG of the repost...as if you deselected some areas before blending the images?

Steve Smith
03-09-2015, 05:25 PM
Hi Morkel,

Thank you for the comments. I did my undergraduate degree studies in N. Wales - fantastic country for rock climbers plus it's full of great Welsh people, half of whom are very kind women. With luminosity masking I am using the approach of taking something apart in order to see how it works and to get a standardized work flow. Just as with motor bikes, odd things may happen when you put the parts back together again. I think that the funkiness in this image is generated in the areas where one or more of the tonal selections/cutouts intersect. So now I will add cutouts of the three intersections and poke them about too. Of course at any time I can also create a custom selection based on tones or colours just by picking the pixels of interest.

I store all my luminosity selections as new alpha channels so that I can reload them and modify them if I wish. I can also create a layer mask from an alpha channel but I prefer the directness of the cutouts. I only recently was lured into luminosity masking by Don Lacy and Don Railton. I am poking at the luminosity selections and dis-assembling them as a way of exploring their behaviour. Interesting stuff though.

Steve Smith