photoshop shadows question

[tim atherton]

I've got a grayscale picture where the are a small number of shadow and I want to darken just those down towards black without affecting the rest of the image.

I know I've done this before, but I'm having a brain fart and I can't remeber for the life of me how to do it...

I'm on PS CS2

any suggestions

thanks

[Frank Petronio]

To Burn:
new layer with mode set to Multiply or Soft Light
add layer mask (funny icon with mask)
fill layer mask w black
use eraser set on 10 to 100% opacity to gently brush in the shadows
flatten layers

To Dodge:
Set mode to screen

[Daniel_Buck]

personally, I use curves layers with layer masks. Very similar to what Frank suggested, but with a curves layer after you paint your mask (brush, gradient, whatever) you can go and fine tune the curves. The curves could do just about anything. Darken shadows, darken highlights, add contrast, brighten shadows, or anyway you set the curve. And after you have your mask painted, you get real-time feedback on your curves adjustments, and only in the areas you have painted in your mask.

This (in my opinion) is the ultimate way to get the most out of digital images, a few simple curves layers and layer masks. You can go back and tweak both the curves and the mask when ever you want!

[Marko]

Similar to what Frank said:

New layer - Soft Light blending

Paint with white to dodge, paint with black to burn. Adjust transparency to finetune.

You can use transparent-to-background gradients to burn/doge areas. Select radial or linear gradient as you need them.

To create a composite layer without flattening, do Ctrl-Option-Cmd-n-e. (Mac only, I don't know Windows shortcut).

[tim atherton]

thanks guys - I was partly getting the wrong mask type which was messing me up...

tim

[Marko]

To create a composite layer without flattening, do Ctrl-Option-Cmd-n-e. (Mac only, I don't know Windows shortcut).

I was apparently tired when I wrote that. It should be:

Shift-Option-Cmd-n-e