Richard Week 5 Ex 7: Flower Vendor

[mikemeister_admin]

I have some problems with this image. I would like to open up the shadows in the window. I can't seem to get a good mask and most of the masks that I have tried undo the effect of the neutral that I placed. When you use a mask, am I correct in thinking that the mask not only affects your future edits, but also affects the edits that you made prior to making the mask?

Richard

[ggroess]

Masks have multiple variations on a theme...

If....
You are in CM and you create a mask channel;  Any curves you write are effected by the mask until you apply the changes and return to PS or PSE.  Then the mask is removed and the changes are applied to your image.

If...
You create a new layer in PS or PSE and add a layer mask.  Open CM and create a mask; copy it to the clip board and exit CM; paste the mask into the layer; and then evoke CM on the image part of the layer;  The mask applies to the all the curves you write in CM but is not destroyed by CM's apply. You can go back into CM with the layer mask still effective.

For your image...there are many different ways to approach a brightness mask....
If you know you are just going after brightness...Create a layer and make your brightness adjustments.  Exit CM. From the background layer open CM and select a L channel or K channel mask and adjust it to protect the areas that you do not want effected by the brightness adjustment .  Usually this is a inverted channel .  you want the dark areas to be white...
Apply the mask to the Layer and blur it this should bring the Dark areas up without hurting the normal Stuff.

You can copy the layer to amplify the effect.

Greg

[mikemeister_admin]

I have tried to do the correction as you have suggested in the solution by using multiple neutrals in RGB. While the window has improved, I am wondering if I slightly over did it with the curves.

Richard