High Contrast and Detail Effect using dodge and burn technique.

[jiro]

Sometimes, our camera delivers some images that doesn't have the pop or punch to make it look interesting. This is true even when you shoot in RAW. That's the reason why you need to apply some post-processing to make use of all those nice pixels from the RAW file to work on. This tutorial will in some sense help to add more contrast and detail to your image should you need to apply one. This technique works beautifully if your subject has a lot of detail in it like bird feathers, clothes, leathers, and such. By the way, this technique is not my original. I only learned this technique from a Photoshop expert and professional photographer by the name of Calvin Hollywood. Hope you will enjoy the tutorial.


A. This is the original image courtesy of Frank Miller (AKA FrankMi). Thanks a lot, Frank!



B. Whenever I work with Photoshop, I always copy the original layer and I work on the copied layer. This way, if I make a mistake I can always revert back to the original layer without destroying the pixel data in it. Press CTRL+J to copy the background layer to a new layer.

Using ACR (Adobe Camera RAW) I did some minor adjustments to the image to open up some of the shadow areas using fill light adjustment, recover some highlight detail by adjusting the recovery slider, and others. This is the image after the adjustment.




C. The image has some minor clutter issue so I will try to clone out some details in the background to keep the viewer's attention on the bird. Usually, when I clone out something I use a new blank layer to do this. In this way, I can adjust the effect of the clone out process by changing the opacity of this layer. To do this, you use the SPOT HEALING BRUSH TOOL and set the tool to content aware, and check the "sample all layers" button then just use the brush to the areas you want to clone out. This is the result after cloning out the debris.



The image looks cleaner and better now. The next thing we need to do is to combine the adjusted layer and the clone out debris layer into one. To do this, left click on the top most layer (the clone out debris layer) then right click it and select the MERGE DOWN option. This will combine only the top most layer and the layer below it. We'll now call this layer "new combined layer".



THE HIGH CONTRAST AND DETAIL EFFECT PROCESS.

Now, we will introduce the high contrast and detail effect using the vivid light blending mode effect. The principle behind the vivid light blending mode is that "Vivid Light will dodge or burn the lower layer pixels depending on whether the upper layer pixels are brighter or darker than neutral gray. It works on the contrast of the lower layer. " It's a little bit hard to understand but the idea is that it increases the contrast. This is the reason why I call this effect the "dodge and burn look" even though I am not actually manually dodging and burning parts of the image. It's more like a global dodge and burn
process. It's automated but with a good effect and it doesn't look fake.

The first thing we need to do now is to copy the new combined layer (the topmost layer) to a new layer. Press CTRL+J again.

1. duplicate the background layer and change the blending mode to vivid light. This is how it should look like once you changed the blending mode of the topmost layer from normal to vivid light.



2. Now, we will sharpen the image using the blur tool. sounds absurd, right? Sharpening an image using the blur tool? It actually does work nicely with the vivid light blend mode. However, you need to INVERT this layer first before you can see the effect of the sharpening process.

3. Press CTRL+I to invert this layer.The image will now look like a 50% gray layer.



After the inversion that's where you apply the blur tool to show the details. We are not going to use the gaussian blur because it will create too much halos. A better option would be the use of SURFACE BLUR.

4. You can add more contrast to the image using the surface blur command by changing the radius pixel value. adjusting the threshold level will make the edges have more or less halos in it. Obviously we don't want halos so we need to use a small value on the threshold slider level. A good initial value would be R = 40 and T = 40 then click OK. This takes time for the computer to compute so be patient. After surface blur is applied the layer looks like a highpass filter but without the halos! You would see the high contrast effect now on this layer after you press OK on the surface blur adjustment window.



5. Now, we need to change the blending mode of this layer to OVERLAY to apply the increased contrast effect. The problem is... Photoshop won't allow you to change the blend mode of the same layer twice without changing the effect you applied.

What we can do now is - to combine the background layer and this new layer to a new layer by to keep the effect. You can combine all the layers by pressing the shortcut CTRL+SHIFT+ALT+E.



6. We don't need the vivid light layer anymore since its effect is already added to the new combined layer (the topmost layer). Delete this layer now (or if you want, just disable it. Just make sure that you're not going to get confused later if you forget to disable this layer!) I prefer to delete it.



7. Now, using the top most layer, I can now change its blending mode to OVERLAY.






Did you see the nice effect applied now? It brought out those nice minute details on the feathers without adding any halos to the image!

Here is where we started:



and here is effect applied.



Now, to finish the image, I added some slight vignette, frame borders, and signature and title. Here is the end final result:





THE END. Thank you.

[Kris V]

Thanks Jiro, I saved these instructions for further reference.

[jiro]

You're most welcome, Kris.

[Rasbury]

Alas.All i have is CS3 and i don't think that has the content aware in the spot healing brush.But then again i have never used the spot healing brush.Very good tutorial though.Thanks for sharing Willie.

[jiro]

Alas.All i have is CS3 and i don't think that has the content aware in the spot healing brush.But then again i have never used the spot healing brush.Very good tutorial though.Thanks for sharing Willie.

You can use the clone tool instead, Ron. Set the opacity to 100% and the flow to 3 - 5% and slowly brush your way to clone out the areas you want. Since your flow is set to a low level it takes more than 2 - 3 passes to cleanly clone out the details but the effect is almost unnoticeable. Hope this helps.

[jeffmoll]

Thanks Jiro! I'm anxious to try this on me hdr tif's.

[jiro]

Thanks Jiro! I'm anxious to try this on me hdr tif's.

I haven't tried coupling this technique with an HDR image. Good luck. Hope you can show us if it would work nicely or not.

[abhi]

Thanks for sharing another wonderful technique, Jiro. Can a high contrast layer (instead of the copy) be used as a starting point for this process?

[jiro]

Thanks for sharing another wonderful technique, Jiro. Can a high contrast layer (instead of the copy) be used as a starting point for this process?

I think you can, though I am not so sure of the result since you already started with a high contrast layer. There's no harm in trying it out.

[abhi]

I think you can, though I am not so sure of the result since you already started with a high contrast layer. There's no harm in trying it out.

I will try it out. I have lately been making B&W luminosity blend layers using a technique from Ron Bigelow, where you use the channel mixer to boost the R/G/B channels with highest contrast in the desired area. So, I am thinking about something along those lines.

[FrankMi]

Thank You Willie! For those of you that were not following the original thread (Not Just Another Pretty Face), I tried the process in this tutorial and it worked great! The result I got, using the same file as in the tutorial, is posted back in the original thread.

[jiro]

You are most welcome, Frank.

[Dave Humphries]

Hi Willie,

Thank you for this, I have also added to my "How To" bookmarks so I can find it when needed.

I have some shots just like this, in hindsight, looking at this one (and mine), IF it doesn't bother the subject, a touch of fill flash (i.e. with some negative FEC) would help I think. It would also provide a catch light.

I must try this technique one day (layers confuse me!) (and blend modes confound me)

Cheers,

[RockNGoalStar]

This is excellent! I've been waiting for this ever since I saw what you managed to do with my image of the proboscis monkey.

I have just tried to process another image of a macaque monkey using this and your other techniques, I will post it on the forum now.

Thanks so much for taking the time to do this

[rob marshall]

I just tried it with an old shot of some stones on the beach. I just applied the technique as detailed above. I made no other changes in CS5 at all, just the technique.

Before, then after

[CBImages]

Thanks for the information Willie, I too will practice putting it to good use. (I knew you were an expert)

Regards

Chris

[jiro]

Hi Willie,

Thank you for this, I have also added to my "How To" bookmarks so I can find it when needed.

I have some shots just like this, in hindsight, looking at this one (and mine), IF it doesn't bother the subject, a touch of fill flash (i.e. with some negative FEC) would help I think. It would also provide a catch light.

I must try this technique one day (layers confuse me!) (and blend modes confound me)

Cheers,

You're most welcome, Dave. Cheers.

[jiro]

This is excellent! I've been waiting for this ever since I saw what you managed to do with my image of the proboscis monkey.

I have just tried to process another image of a macaque monkey using this and your other techniques, I will post it on the forum now.

Thanks so much for taking the time to do this

You're very welcome, Tommy. Cheers.

[jiro]

I just tried it with an old shot of some stones on the beach. I just applied the technique as detailed above. I made no other changes in CS5 at all, just the technique.

Nice one, Rob. If I can remember, this technique works quite well if you have an image rich in detail like bird feathers, clothing (specially jeans) and if you want to make it gritty sometimes it can also work with stones and concrete.

[jiro]

Thanks for the information Willie, I too will practice putting it to good use. (I knew you were an expert)

Regards

Chris

You're most welcome, Chris. Cheers.