On Nov 6, 2006, at 7:43 AM, Shel Belinkoff wrote: > Is it possible to use these features locally in PS CS (such as in > specific > shadow areas) or must the adjustments be made to the entire photo?
If you're talking about these controls in Camera Raw, the adjustments are made on the entire image. If you want to have the corrections applied selectively, you need to RAW convert the image twice. - Save the files out to two PSD files. - Open the two files. - Copy the one that has the corrections you want and paste it onto the one tha has no corrections, the pasted data will by default be in a layer floating above the background and will hide the background, uncorrected layer. - Add a Layer Mask with Hide All option to this layer. (the mask will be black) - Use the brush tool with a soft edge and foreground color white to paint in the areas of the scene where you want the correction to show through. - Once you have it set up the way you want, flatten the image to merge the two layers into the background layer. If you want to adjust the cropping, you should either do it in the RAW converter so that both versions output will be identical or do it after doing the above on the edited image. You can do similar things using the noise reduction or sharpening tools in Photoshop at the RGB level by duplicating the background layer, applying noise reductions to the layer, then adding the mask and exposing the areas you want to correct, merging. I do this all the time with sharpening in particular. The best way to not have noise problems to begin with is to provide adequate exposure, of course. In a high contrast scene with moving subject matter like people, you ultimately have to deal with the maximum dynamic range of the sensor, but if you target Zone IX as your exposure baseline (the brightest white that includes detail) you should be able to accommodate up to 8-9 stops of dynamic range in your scene with good RAW conversion practice. At high ISO settings, this dynamic range is reduced ... you need to experiment to see what you can obtain at the ISO and exposure settings that fit your subject matter. Data that falls out at the bottom can simply be clipped to black, or blended to provides a smooth fall off rather than a speckled appearance. Or you can add noise to simulate and provide the perception of grain, like Tri-X exposed at ASA 1600 or higher. ;-) enjoy Godfrey -- PDML Pentax-Discuss Mail List PDML@pdml.net http://pdml.net/mailman/listinfo/pdml_pdml.net
