Ramble: Masking with Equalize — OZONE Asylum, home of the Mad Scientists

Ramble: Masking with Equalize

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Your Text: Insert Slimies » Insert UBB Code » Close Last Tag \| All Tags UBB Help	I want to talk about frequency a little bit. Not frequency in the way that you have heard me talk about frequency, but in a delta sort of way. I draw things in triangles, circles, waves, and similiar. If you give me Levels, I'll draw some triangles and trapezoids to explain it. Triangles is how I see ratios in my head. Give me Hue/Sat, and I'll draw an offset wave and some circles to explain how I see it in my head. Offset wave? WTF is that? It is simply modifying data, usually with a mask. That's it. Consider the gamma slider in Levels. If you move it one way, then you are adding to the midtones, but adding nothing to black or white values. If you move it the other way, then you are subtracting from the midtones, but subtracting nothing from the black and white values. Even though not technically correct, gamma can be thought of as an isosceles triangle. This is how I see it. More in the middle, none at all at the ends. One day I was working on increasing tonal range in a photograph. Sometimes subtle shades of orange just aren't enough and I want to punch things more into the red and yellow range. So there I was with my low-tech notebook and pencil just drawing away when it occurred to me. [i]I can trick Photoshop into working the exact same way that I think.[/i] This is the way that I think and see things. Gonna switch it up that basterd Curves view that adore. Now, the numbers on the side are for illustration. I'll get to those in a minute. [img]http://tech-slop.serveit.org/wiki/images/LLoffset.gif[/img] Upper-Leftt This is how I see Brighness. No matter what value you put into it, it will add approximatley 64. This is how Brightness in Brightness/Contrast works. Upper-Right: This is basic contrast like the Contrast slider in Brightness/Contrast. It will add nothing to values in the middle. It will add as you get higher, and add even more as you get closer to 255. Same thing with <128 end -- the lower you get, the more it subtracts. Basic scaling, and a great way to blow your highs and lows. Lower-Left: This will decrease contrast much in the same way as adding contrast. Nothing in the middle, subtract more and more as you get higher, and add more and more as you get lower. This will scale things tighter to 128. This is a great way to wash out a photograph. Interestingly enough, you can use this to invert the data. Lower-Right: Ah, a softer offset wave for contrast. This will add to values that are around 192, and will subtract from values around 64. This will do nothing to the highs, mids, or lows that are input into the wave. So, this is a way of adding contrast without blowing the highs and lows. The last one, the lower-right one, might look a little familiar to some of you folks. Either the wave shown, or the description. Now, I called those diagrams a basterd Curves view for a reason. Aha! Did it click? Did you realize that you were looking at a rotated view of Curves? You get +5 WJ Points if you did. How do we get Curves to behave like in the basterd, rotated waves? Quite simply, Linear Light. Start a Curves Adjustment Layer, flatten the curve to 128 all the way across, and change the blending mode to Linear Light. But LL is a bit harsh because of the doubling. In order to halve the doubling, simply bring the Opacity down to 50%. With this last little bit, you can now work with delta directly. And, for a guy like me, in a way that is 100% consistant with the way I think on a fundamental level. Well, not that I can't think in Curves as-is, but sometimes Curves in LL helps me depending on my mood. If you understand using Curves in LL, then you understand calculus. If you think you are a numbnuts that can't understand calculus, maybe you aren't as dumb as you think. Or maybe you just need a different tutor. Heh, using Photoshop to teach 'advanced' math concepts. I find humour in that. Of course, the usual what works for me may not work for you. Take the bits and refine your own flow. Find your center and unleash it. There is another reason why I used those diagrams. This will be next and it just might prove interesting. Loading...
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