Linear Burn

[Arthur Morris]

Having learned pretty much everything that I know about Photoshop from friends it is rare that I discover something new on my own. (You can see my first post on Linear Burn here: http://www.birdphotographers.net/forums/showthread.php?t=17876

To increase the density and detail in highlight areas, you can create a mask by using Select/Color Range/Highlights or Select/Color Range/Sampled Colors, or by creating a Quick Mask.

Once you have the area you want to work on on its own layer, select Linear Burn as the Blending Mode (rather than Multipy which many folks currently use for the same purpose). In most cases, you will need to reduce the opacity to taste. When using Liinear Burn, the whites looked really, really good with detail and without the dreaded muddy/grey look.

The optimized image is above.