comp.graphics.apps.photoshop Google Group

Re: Need Shadow/Highlight Control Plugin for CS2 in Form of Graphics Equalizer

z_q-g...@cox.net (JOHNCHAP2) — Fri, 25 Jul 2008 21:21:06 UT

What is wrong is that using either curves or cs2's shadows/highlights
[advanced option] does not do quite as well as the ACDSee version, and
is harder and more time consuming to use in any case. Levels won't do
the trick at all.

Re: Need Shadow/Highlight Control Plugin for CS2 in Form of Graphics Equalizer

u...@domain.invalid — Fri, 25 Jul 2008 21:13:48 UT

Its not the same thing as shadow/highlight. Curves operates on the whole
image equally. Shadow/highlight (I'm talking CS2) first decides what
is a shadow area, or a highlight. You can adjust the cutoff points. But more important,
it does not decide based on individual pixels. First it makes
a blurred image of the whole picture, where the blur radius is

Re: Need Shadow/Highlight Control Plugin for CS2 in Form of Graphics Equalizer

jp...@comcast.net (John McWilliams) — Fri, 25 Jul 2008 20:39:15 UT

And the Highlight/Shadows adjustment, when you select to show more
Options, allows infinite adjustments, and an ability to save whatever
you wish as presets.

Re: Need Shadow/Highlight Control Plugin for CS2 in Form of Graphics Equalizer

m...@mine.net — Fri, 25 Jul 2008 20:11:40 UT

On Fri, 25 Jul 2008 10:27:01 -0700 (PDT), in rec.photo.digital JOHNCHAP2
What's wrong either using curves and/or levels?

Need Shadow/Highlight Control Plugin for CS2 in Form of Graphics Equalizer

z_q-g...@cox.net (JOHNCHAP2) — Fri, 25 Jul 2008 17:27:01 UT

My ACDSee Pro 2 has a shadow/highlight control which in the advance
mode operates like a graphic equilizer in a stereo system. It allows
the user to enhance and reduce the shadows and highlights in either 5
or 9 precise bands each. It is more precise and a whole lot easier to
use than the shadow/highlight control that comes with CS2 (and I

Re: How to select unsharp areas in a picture

ronvi...@gmail.com (ronviers@gmail.com) — Fri, 25 Jul 2008 05:22:42 UT

There is free software designed to do this called CombineZM written by
Alan Hadley. It may be worth checking out if you will be doing a lot
of this type of work.
[link]

Re: How to select unsharp areas in a picture

group...@movecurvemeister.com (Mike Russell) — Fri, 25 Jul 2008 00:05:55 UT

There is an automated way to do this that works pretty well. The principle
is to subtract each layer from a blurred copy of itself, and use the
resulting image as a mask. Here's the procedure:
Copy and paste layer 2 to a new image, convert it Lab, dupe to a new layer,
blur the upper layer, set it to difference mode, and flatten. The Lightness

Re: How to select unsharp areas in a picture

spamf...@hotmail.com (KatWoman) — Thu, 24 Jul 2008 18:33:16 UT

me I like the natural drop off from the lenses
but
I see that you wish the entire sharp
the left facing us between the flower and grass has one part a little blurry
and a few sunflowers at the right middle
put a mask on the layer with blurry area
put the sharp focus image under it
paint with black on the mask

Re: How to select unsharp areas in a picture

l.licht...@worldnet.att.net (Leo Lichtman) — Thu, 24 Jul 2008 16:37:47 UT

not satisfactory for my
^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^
First, let me say that I like the picture very much. Second, I fail to see
what you find wrong with it. I think maybe the problem is that you are
concentrating on the overlap areas where you are working, so your attention
is on a level of imperfection that is imperceptible to others. Show the

How to select unsharp areas in a picture

ruedi.stae...@gmail.com (ruedis.ch) — Thu, 24 Jul 2008 09:18:27 UT

I have taken several shots of the same motive each with a different
plane of focus (I used a tripod).
In Photoshop CS3 I have taken the resulting pictures and put them in
different layers and aligned the pictures. Now I would like to mask
the unsharp image areas on each layer in order to get a composit

Re: brighten foreground without abrupt edge?

group...@movecurvemeister.com (Mike Russell) — Tue, 22 Jul 2008 20:37:43 UT

...
The magic wand almost always produces a poor selection when used in a
photograph. As Tacit says, curves can do a lot.
Here's my take, using curves only:
[link]
To darken the sky, use curves in a layer (or smart filter for
Curvemeister/CS3), and a modified version of one of the channels as a mask,

Re: brighten foreground without abrupt edge?

al...@free.fr (Almen) — Tue, 22 Jul 2008 18:21:26 UT

Joe a écrit :
In the Peter's image, the characters are rather dark and the sky is
rather bright. So even if the command processes the whole image, it
brightens only the characters.
You can look at the corrected image :
[link]
The command is :
Image > Adjustments > Shadow/Highlight

Re: brighten foreground without abrupt edge?

j...@dontspam.com (Joe) — Tue, 22 Jul 2008 17:56:37 UT

Shadow/Hi-lite usually shadow/hi-lite the whole image not to the specific
area. I believe it has few extra option like more/less to darker/brighter
but still pretty limit comparing to advanced trick.

Re: brighten foreground without abrupt edge?

al...@free.fr (Almen) — Tue, 22 Jul 2008 16:40:55 UT

peter a écrit :
Another way, is using Viveza filters and its U points : control points
(a little expensive but fantastic !) or Nikon Capture NX
Here, I have modified only the man on the left :
[link]

Re: brighten foreground without abrupt edge?

al...@free.fr (Almen) — Tue, 22 Jul 2008 16:35:57 UT

peter a écrit :
Hi,
Have you tried the shadows/highligth command ?
For example : [link]