Tutorial Luminosity Masks Photoshop CC

Craig_85

Craig_85

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Luminosity Masks Photoshop CC - Blending multiple exposures in Photoshop to increase dynamic range

There are always discussions raging on the forum about HDR vs graduated filters. Quite often it progresses to 'getting it right in the camera' vs 'spending hours in front of a computer'. I have used both methods extensively, and not always exclusively, sometimes I have blended graduated shots. I am not going to say which method is correct, I think partly it comes down to the best way for you to get the results that you are happy with, and for me where the results are not always brilliant it...
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Noticed the last image is not displaying. It is worth clicking through to see it on flickr if this problem is there for others, because it shows the layers palette and masks quite clearly and you may need this if trying to follow along.
 
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Thank you for this very helpful tutorial.
Luminosity masks are one of the more complicated (IMHO) concepts/techniques to understand, and yours goes a long way towards me getting a grip on it.
Well done, and thanks for your time.
 
Thanks for posting. Ive done a few tutorials on luminosity masking but they seemed quite long on complex, it just didnt sink in. This looks a lot easier to follow, I'll certainly give it a try. :)
 
Thanks for sharing :)
 
Thanks for the replies everyone.

If anyone is new to blending and wants me to do a step by step guide using a couple of their own pictures showing how I would tackle those exact ones so that they can follow along I am happy to.
 
ecoleman said:
Been giving this a try but what do you do when you have trees that are moving slightly in a breeze?

I just get a bloody awful mess.
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I would get a soft edged paintbrush on the layer mask and paint through to reveal the darker exposure where the tree branches have moved. I would do it at a reduced opacity and build it up till it looked right. I would try and keep some detail from the lighter exposure in the main trunk though.

To be fair the situation you are talking about is one of the worst to deal with multiple exposures. It is a balancing act to decide what should have detail and where you can accept it missing, if done well backlit smaller branches silhouette faded to detail in the static trunks can look good, no worse than a grad would give.

There is another more complicated way around it, which is a shadow pushed raw conversion from your sky exposure to get the correct detail in the trees then mask them through against the sky, as it is the same shot they have not moved. Then continue to mask the ground through from the brighter native exposure. The trade off here is more noise in the trees but what's great about this is it is your choice, not a hard grad line or a software trying to turn the whole shot grey. Photoshop and manual blending allows a lot of work arounds to deal with things. If you have the time!
 
Craig_85 said:
I would get a soft edged paintbrush on the layer mask and paint through to reveal the darker exposure where the tree branches have moved. I would do it at a reduced opacity and build it up till it looked right. I would try and keep some detail from the lighter exposure in the main trunk though.

To be fair the situation you are talking about is one of the worst to deal with multiple exposures. It is a balancing act to decide what should have detail and where you can accept it missing, if done well backlit smaller branches silhouette faded to detail in the static trunks can look good, no worse than a grad would give.

There is another more complicated way around it, which is a shadow pushed raw conversion from your sky exposure to get the correct detail in the trees then mask them through against the sky, as it is the same shot they have not moved. Then continue to mask the ground through from the brighter native exposure. The trade off here is more noise in the trees but what's great about this is it is your choice, not a hard grad line or a software trying to turn the whole shot grey. Photoshop and manual blending allows a lot of work arounds to deal with things. If you have the time!
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I'll have a go. It probably wasn't the best image for my first attempt with luminosity masks. I'm still struggling to get to grips with blending two images so god forbid I have to blend 3 or 4 :)
 
I need to get my head around this and this tutorial looks excellent.
I just wish there was someone nearby that I could pay in beer who'd be able to give me Photoshop lessons! I struggle a bit with motivation when following YouTube and other tutorials :-)
 
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