Bob Randall Photography wrote:

Well, just to complicate matters a bit, remember you have at least 10 individual channels at your disposal when you use this tool. RGB, LAB, CMYK. There are some complex ways of creating HSB as well, which gives you 13 channels to play with.

Make a CMYK separation of a duplicate copy of a portrait using UCR and set the black generation to 40%. Convert the file to CMYK and inspect the black channel...

I am stuck here... I have a CMYK image.
What is UCR?
Black generation?
How do I inspect the black channel??\
God, I feel dumb!

IMagus Digital Fine Art wrote:
Some nice tips here that I will likely try but I'll be honest with you - I never use the dodge and burn except for a bit of a cosmetic touch up before I finish a piece.

That's what I love about PS ~ it's like a artistic musical instrument that can be played many many different ways. Honestly my best technique is not to have one really but mostly it's a process of experimentation - the rest is instinct, knowing what looks great 

.. but that's just me

refreshing thread for a change that I actually found useful.

My thoughts exactly. Learning PS for me has been from a portrait photographers viewpoint. Dodge and burn on a global basis is frowned upon because of what it can do to colors. I've been more than happy using a curves adjustment to deal with contrast, et al.

But I'm wanting to get in to a "painting with light" technique and there is some info here that just might help.

Thanks for the thread WGR.

Bob Randall Photography wrote:
Well, just to complicate matters a bit, remember you have at least 10 individual channels at your disposal when you use this tool. RGB, LAB, CMYK. There are some complex ways of creating HSB as well, which gives you 13 channels to play with.

Make a CMYK separation of a duplicate copy of a portrait using UCR and set the black generation to 40%. Convert the file to CMYK and inspect the black channel...

Jedediah Speer wrote:
I am stuck here... I have a CMYK image.
What is UCR?

Black generation?

Under Color Removal... it is a style of separation based on the old analog method of making seps from original film or prints. Go to the upper level menu in PS "edit/color settings". A small sub menu pops up. Click on "working spaces/CMYK" and drag to "custom". Another pop up menu appears. Check the radio button for "UCR" Type in as low a number as you like for Black ink limit and any number you like for "total ink limit" (under 300 produces questionable results) You have just "generated a custom black channel. Click OK and close out the menus.

Jedediah Speer wrote:
How do I inspect the black channel??\
God, I feel dumb!

Take an RGB file and change it's mode to CMYK. You have just made a UCR separation with a black channel at the percentage you typed in on the custom CMYK menu. Click to the channels pallet; in default on CS# it is next to the layers pallet. Click on the black channel to view your work. Pretty thin looking black channel, right? Type command M to bring up a curve and drag the shadow slider until you have a channel looking the way you want it. You shouldn't have to drag the highlight slider to brighten the white area because there is typically no detail in that area on a black channel this thin. You can use this channel to apply image, make a shadow mask, paint through, as a mask in calculations or any thing you can think to use it for. You will find it is much smoother and more detailed than making a magic wand or color range selection.

Now, not so dumb anymore.

Jeanloup wrote:
nevermind mind, Bob beat me.

Put it back, you explained something I missed regarding how UCR works.

Bob Randall Photography wrote:

You know what might be interesting... Who uses hard mix and linear burn and pin light and linear light and difference and exclusion and how do they use them. I have never found a reason to use pin light or hard mix in anything. I've use exclusion and difference to make masks.

I've seen artists use difference to check if layers are justified properly.

Frank Mattoni wrote:

Bob Randall Photography wrote:

You know what might be interesting... Who uses hard mix and linear burn and pin light and linear light and difference and exclusion and how do they use them. I have never found a reason to use pin light or hard mix in anything. I've use exclusion and difference to make masks.

I've seen artists use difference to check if layers are justified properly.

Yeah, that's the common use for it. But what other creative uses does it have?

EL PIC wrote:
Dodge and Burn is what made Ansel Ansel !!

Think he would have a field day with PS.

But too many models this day Dodge and Burn Photographers !!

EL

Lol @ "But too many models this day Dodge and Burn Photographers !!"

KingPaul wrote:
I don't know if anyone picks up on it when viewing my work, but dodge and burn is a major player in how I process an image. To me it can make areas of the picture appear to move forward or backward. When you think about it, these tools are naturally inherent to photography, and since I'm old skool in my training, and photography is the recording of light, it just seems to make sense even though I'm no photoshop wizard.

I'm old school too. I don't do anything with photoshop that I can't do in an analog fashion. My background in prepress and retouch is pretty extensive, so I have a lot of analog tricks, but I do try to stay within the confines of analog process. It makes me feel traditional in some weird way.

Obsidian Blade wrote:
For more creative processing I tend to make a channel mixer layer for a color to which I want to add something resembling an interior glow, and then paint that layer on in either overlay, soft light or hardlight. Typically this works best for red: channel mixer, monochrome mode, 100% red, one of the above-mentioned mix modes (whichever looks best for the particular image - generally overlay and hard light tend to give similar, contrasty results with hard light preserving less saturation; while soft light gives a, well, softer effect), and paint onto the red region I want to add that "glow" to. It's what I did here, both with her red cloth and her skin tones:

Is the net effect of this treatment, lighter but desaturated highlights in the red areas, such as the scarf?

Bob Randall Photography wrote:

Is the net effect of this treatment, lighter but desaturated highlights in the red areas, such as the scarf?

Yes.

Obsidian Blade wrote:

Yes.

Very cool new trick, thanks!

Bob Randall Photography wrote:

Very cool new trick, thanks!

You're more than welcome. I'm honored that I could add to your bag!

CynTay wrote:
Are there classes just for photoshop or is it easier than what I'm expecting?
Being broke sucks - anyone have a spare cd of photoshop

I'll give you PS lessons in return for nude modeling or sex. You choose! Whatever you decide, don't tell your husband or my wife, let's keep it between the two of us.

Bob Randall Photography wrote:

Very cool new trick, thanks!

That's not new. You can go into your 'hue and sat' menu and individually select each color that is there. But mayhaps it's new to you. So I have to take that into consideration.

Legacys 7 wrote:

That's not new. You can go into your 'hue and sat' menu and individually select each color that is there. But mayhaps it's new to you. So I have to take that into consideration.

You are behaving like rain on a parade day. What's with all the one upsmanship stuff?

Bob Randall Photography wrote:
You are behaving like rain on a parade day. What's with all the one upsmanship stuff?

Guys like you who really know their shit are kinda intimidating to insecure youth, Bob. The smart ones handle their insecurities by trying to learn, and the dumb ones handle their insecurities by trying to hump the couch leg so they can brag about the size of the stain they leave. Which do you think is going on here?

Marcus J. Ranum wrote:

Guys like you who really know their shit are kinda intimidating to insecure youth, Bob. The smart ones handle their insecurities by trying to learn, and the dumb ones handle their insecurities by trying to hump the couch leg so they can brag about the size of the stain they leave. What do you think is going on here?

Marcus you are too cool for words, you're like the Jack Nicholson of photography!

Thanks.

Obsidian Blade wrote:
For more creative processing I tend to make a channel mixer layer for a color to which I want to add something resembling an interior glow

I've heard people refer to "interior glow" before, but I don't understand what it means. Are you referring to the kind of airbrushed-looking highlights look?

Bob Randall Photography wrote:

You are behaving like rain on a parade day. What's with all the one upsmanship stuff?

You are paranoid as usual. Stop being so damn sensitive here. You claim other are sensitive and yet fail to acknowledge your own. I am not attacking you. If you read what I had stated. I pointed out that it's not new, but then again when I think about it, it's new to you. 'I didn't take that inconsideration.' That was my way of correcting myself.

Marcus J. Ranum wrote:
Guys like you who really know their shit are kinda intimidating to insecure youth, Bob. The smart ones handle their insecurities by trying to learn, and the dumb ones handle their insecurities by trying to hump the couch leg so they can brag about the size of the stain they leave. Which do you think is going on here?

Too much assumption on your part. Unless I state that I'm old or young, never assume nor assume that I'm intimidated. I don't have time for that nor am I insecure. Your boy just got too excited and misread what I pointed out. I'm sure that he's 'grown' enough not to need a co-signer. So stop humping his leg. I don't think he likes the idea of having your jock stain on his leg.

W.G. Rowland wrote:

What about using dodge and burn techniques to intentionally alter color?  What blend modes add saturation? 

I'm experimenting..  I'm not perfect at what I do by any means, but I've gotten to the point where I've started hitting on the limitations of the way I do what I do..  One of them being I tend to have very flat colors in my images.. Which is fine, it's my taste.. But when I want to get away from that my own editing techniques get in my way..  I've seen great examples of brightly colored "paint with light" style techniques done entirely in photoshop.. But the how's and why's get pretty muddy..

Our own Ransom J of late has come upon a technique that produces some outrageously stylist, brightly colored stuff..  It's neat.. I wouldn't want every picture to look like that..  But.. It's new to me.. So I'm interested.

Duplicate layers help a lot when doing these techniques....Have you trying dodging and burning that way.  I over lay my layers like I used to oil paint.

EL PIC wrote:
Dodge and Burn is what made Ansel Ansel !!

Think he would have a field day with PS.

But too many models this day Dodge and Burn Photographers !!

EL

Classic twist to your comment. Lovely.  :>)

3R GraphX wrote:
What blending  I can use to get this same final result on a picture. (I looks like kind of a painting)

Seems like a grunge or dirty canvas texture on top of the image with Overlay or Soft Light as blending mode at low opacity ( they seem to have kept a little color from the texure ).

Textures can do a lot to a image. Heres a canvas texture over a image to make it more painting like. The texture is from an old Rembrandt painting.

Obsidian Blade wrote:
For dodging and burning I typically use a curves layer for each and paint on as needed. I'm curious, though, if there are benefits to using the other techniques I've described in this thread over curves layers.

For more creative processing I tend to make a channel mixer layer for a color to which I want to add something resembling an interior glow, and then paint that layer on in either overlay, soft light or hardlight. Typically this works best for red: channel mixer, monochrome mode, 100% red, one of the above-mentioned mix modes (whichever looks best for the particular image - generally overlay and hard light tend to give similar, contrasty results with hard light preserving less saturation; while soft light gives a, well, softer effect), and paint onto the red region I want to add that "glow" to. It's what I did here, both with her red cloth and her skin tones:



For other colors use the appropriate mix of monochrome channels, though as I mentioned the effect is never as successful as with red, for some reason (anyone hazard a guess why?).

Something else I tend to do is mix down a gradient layer, usually in overlay or multiply mode - though with the latter, you usually have to increase the brightness with a curves layer (which increases overall contrast because you're creating tonal gaps - not always a bad thing). The net effect is to add a subtle (or sometimes not-so) overall color cast to the image which gradually changes from top to bottom (or side-to-side, but I've never done it that way, for some reason), and which reinforces the overall "chromatic integrity" (for lack of a better term) of the image. That's what I did here:



Further, some additional tweaking by way of additional gradient layers and individual color curves sometimes results in an effect which duplicates the color- and contrast-quality of the thick, cheap paper pulp prevalent in magazines in the 70's and 80's. It's what I grew up with, so I imagine that's why I might find this pleasing to the eye. For the color curves I generally crank the blue curve up towards more yellow at the high end and more blue at the lower end, and repeat with the red channel, more red up top and more cyan down blow - simple S curves in both cases (also applied to the above image).

That's similar to what I did to get my skin tones on my pink avatar. I think red channel works better on skin 'cause there is more red in skin, so it lightens it more.