Correcting Images Using Brush Techniques

Painting Using Layer Masks

In this example, the avocet chick’s eye and part of its head are in shadow and need to be brightened (Figure 8-66).

The region around the avocet chick’s eye is too dark.

Figure 8-66. The region around the avocet chick’s eye is too dark.

  1. First, we create a new Curves adjustment layer and brighten the whole image using the curve shown in Figure 8-67. The result in Figure 8-68 is obviously too bright, but we can fix that as follows:

    The Curve we used to brighten the image

    Figure 8-67. The Curve we used to brighten the image

    The image is now too bright.

    Figure 8-68. The image is now too bright.

  2. We select the white layer mask from our new layer and invert it to black using (Figure 8-69).

The black mask prevents the adjustment layer from being brightened, so we work selectively on the mask using a soft brush and the following settings:

  • Painting color white

  • Opacity set to 15%

  • Hardness set to between 0% and 10%.

We make a few soft brush strokes over the dark part of the chick’s face and the darker parts of its body and legs using 15% opacity. You will need to experiment with different opacity values to get a feel for the way this effect works.

Our Layers stack showing the inverted (black) mask

Figure 8-69. Our Layers stack showing the inverted (black) mask

Our Layers stack showing the inverted (black) mask
The chick’s head and parts of its body are now brighter. The corresponding Layers panel is shown above.

Figure 8-70. The chick’s head and parts of its body are now brighter. The corresponding Layers panel is shown above.

A look at the layer mask itself (-click the layer mask thumbnail) reveals the secret of this technique (Figure 8-71) – the brightening effect is only applied where the mask is white.

This is a great multipurpose technique for applying selective adjustments to various types of layers, for example:

  • A layer containing a sharpened version of an image

  • A layer containing a reduced-noise version of the image

  • Hue/Saturation adjustment layers

  • Curves adjustment layers

Our finished layer mask

Figure 8-71. Our finished layer mask

We already demonstrated a variant of this method in Blending Layers Using Layer Styles, where we used Overlay blend mode while applying selective adjustments.

..................Content has been hidden....................

You can't read the all page of ebook, please click here login for view all page.
Reset
3.139.67.5