Tough selections made easy

[idenford]

How brilliant, thank you for posting that tutorial. A gift

[Eric Myrvaagnes]

Excellent! I will now go back to some images that I had given up on.
Thank you, Charles!

[Christopher Sanderson]

Magic, Charlie...pure magic!

Chris S

[tived]

great tut! thanks for sharing

I have in the past done similar editing on images, but never had a name for it :-) just did it as I saw fit. anyway thanks very much sharing, love your work.

However,  i have a question? :-)

quote CC:
"With this curve open, if you “drag” in the image (holding the mouse down), you’ll see a little circle that shows where these tones are on the curve."
end Quote CC:

what are you doing here? is this a Mac thing :-) ? because later in the text you also mention the CTRL+click on the image to get your control points. this later one I am well aware of, but I have never heard or seen someone drag in an image into ad adjustment layer and get its control points...or ?

what have i missed here or is it the one and same thing?

thanks very much

Henrik

[atassy]

quote CC:
"With this curve open, if you “drag” in the image (holding the mouse down), you’ll see a little circle that shows where these tones are on the curve."
end Quote CC:

what are you doing here? is this a Mac thing :-)
[a href=\"index.php?act=findpost&pid=175365\"][{POST_SNAPBACK}][/a]

sorry i can't tell you if it's mac specific as i'm on a mac... but wouldn't expect it to work any different on windows.

anyway, if you have curves open and put the curser into the image area, it turns into an eyedropper.  now if you hold down the mouse in click position and look at your curve, you'll see a circle appear on the curve indicating the value of where the eyedropper is positioned in the image.

this lets you see where the values that you wish to isolate are positioned on the curve and therefore, where to put your control points.

[NikoJorj]

quote CC:
"With this curve open, if you “drag” in the image (holding the mouse down), you’ll see a little circle that shows where these tones are on the curve."
end Quote CC:

what are you doing here? is this a Mac thing :-) ?
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No!
Just the same in Win : if you click in the image, a small circle on the curve shows you the value of the point you're clicking at (where that pixel falls on the curve).
Oops, sorry if that sounds complicated, but it's actually very simple, and informative only, it changes nothing on the adjustment you're doing.
No, it's not a hidden Target Adjustment Tool in PS, sorry   .

[tived]

thanks guys for your replies

but...CC is saying he is dragging the image onto the curve to get the points?!

I am familiar with the CRTL+Click and you get the location on the curve.

but dragging it? that is definately different - what am I missing?

or is it the one and same?

Henrik

[atassy]

thanks guys for your replies

but...CC is saying he is dragging the image onto the curve to get the points?!

I am familiar with the CRTL+Click and you get the location on the curve.

but dragging it? that is definately different - what am I missing?

or is it the one and same?

Henrik
[a href=\"index.php?act=findpost&pid=175620\"][{POST_SNAPBACK}][/a]

he is dragging IN the image, meaning to move the mouse (at this stage eyedropper) around in the image area. he's not dragging the image itself and you're not missing anything

[BernardLanguillier]

The tutorial is very well made and examples are totally relevant, I am sure that many will benefit from it, but the technique in itself is fairly obvious isn't it?

I would think that most people already combine curves with masks, and the basic idea of a curve is that you can determine what tonal range is going to be affected, isn't it?  What PS brings to the picture compared to, say most of the RAW conversion softwares, is local modifications thanks to masking, as opposed to global modifications.

To my eyes, PS has little value if this was not understood. Putting it the other way around, what were you guys doing with PS if you weren't doing some variant of this already?

I'd say that the only aspect average PS users like me don't always think of doing is to use Luminosity mode instead of Normal mode to avoid hues modifications.

Cheers,
Bernard

[tived]

he is dragging IN the image, meaning to move the mouse (at this stage eyedropper) around in the image area. he's not dragging the image itself and you're not missing anything
[a href=\"index.php?act=findpost&pid=175632\"][{POST_SNAPBACK}][/a]

thanks I am feeling better already - sorry for over reacting  

thanks

Henrik

[walter.sk]

How brilliant, thank you for posting that tutorial. A gift
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I'd like to see the tutorial...Could you provide a link, or at least a reference?

[KeithR]

I'd like to see the tutorial...Could you provide a link, or at least a reference?
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Try this:
[a href=\"http://www.luminous-landscape.com/tutorials/Cramer_Selections.shtml]http://www.luminous-landscape.com/tutorial...elections.shtml[/url]

[walter.sk]

Try this:
http://www.luminous-landscape.com/tutorial...elections.shtml
[a href=\"index.php?act=findpost&pid=175919\"][{POST_SNAPBACK}][/a]

Thanks for the link.  I found the tutorial eye-opening.  I have for a long time used the curves adjustment layer to pin down areas that I didn't want changed while I adjusted the tone of other parts of an image.  However, it never occurred to me to do it in conjunction with a loose selection and layer mask, with the rigor that Mr. Cramer presented.  For some images, this would give even better control than the use of Shadow/HIghlights in CS3.

[Philmar]

Thanks for the link.  I found the tutorial eye-opening.  I have for a long time used the curves adjustment layer to pin down areas that I didn't want changed while I adjusted the tone of other parts of an image.  However, it never occurred to me to do it in conjunction with a loose selection and layer mask, with the rigor that Mr. Cramer presented.  For some images, this would give even better control than the use of Shadow/HIghlights in CS3.
[a href=\"index.php?act=findpost&pid=176009\"][{POST_SNAPBACK}][/a]

Yeah, me too. I found myself slapping my forehead at what seemed totally obvious AFTER it was pointed out.