help needed editing sky separately from the ground

[jasonso]

Hello all! I am having a recurring problem when editing my pictures so I think my technique must be wrong or what I want is just not possible. I've uploaded a contrived example for you to see the problem.
What I want to achieve, is to play with the levels of the sky (adding contrast, etc) and also do the same for the ground separately.
The problem is that I always end up with an ugly light border around the horizon, as you can see clearly on the right of this image - and all along if you zoom in.

The way I currently do it is like this:
- create two duplicate layers of the original image and give them both an empty layer mask - one for sky, one for the ground
- then using the magic wand/fuzzy select tool I select the sky outlining the horizon
- then, in the ground layer mask I fill the sky selection with black so all manipulation only affects the ground
- then I invert the selection and in the sky layer mask I fill the (now) ground selection with black so all manipulation only affects the sky
- after that I do all the lightening/darkening on the sky/ground

If anyone has any tips or ideas out there I'd really appreciate it. Oh btw I use gimp but I don't think doing the same thing in PS would be any different

DSC_1696_fix by Jason S, on Flickr

[Ari]

Try Lightroom; you can select specific areas to work on, without the need for masks or layers.

I hope you don't mind, but I took your photo, put it into LR, and in about one minute, did more or less what you said you wanted.

The result here is quick and crude, but it's just to show what can be possible. I just quickly dodged the entire area of trees and grass, added some contrast and boosted the highlights.

You can easily do the same for the sky, or just the grass, or even just one cow.

[Lenny Eiger]

If anyone has any tips or ideas out there I'd really appreciate it. Oh btw I use gimp but I don't think doing the same thing in PS would be any different

Some of you technique is right,....

I do this all the time. This is a normal problem to have. PhotoShop handles it well.

First of all, don't duplicate data layers. Just create an adjustment layer. To do this, one selects the part of the image they want to modify, then creates a curve adjustment layer. The selection will already be there as the mask...

I would not use the magic wand, certainly not a lasso or marquee for any of this. I use two methods primarily, the first is select by color range. That's the easiest. The other is to select by choosing one of the channels that outlines your edge very clearly. One loads in the channel as a selection, goes into quick mask, then loads up a curves dialog to enhance the channels separation. Don't worry about anything but the edge. Exit Quick Mask, save as an adjustment layer. There are a pile of extra techniques for this, Calculations to merge layers, etc.

Once one has that, one clicks on the mask to modify it to perfection. This is best done with a Wacom tablet and the brush tool. One loads the selection by command-click, then goes into quick mask and paints over the image. Exit and save the selection when done. One can also load up the black/white option of the mask and paint directly on that, its great for getting rid of the part of the sky at the top that didn't get selected, etc. One can use the lasso there and fill... as long as you say away from the edge. One can also use the brush, of course.

Once there is a sky mask (or the bottom part) you can invert the mask itself. You can also make multiple masks and add and subtract them to each other. Adjustment layers add little to the image, so you can do as much as you need to.

This is basic PhotoShop technique, it's essential...

Lenny

[Peter De Smidt]

There are lots of good tutorials on masking out there, many of them free. For example:http://phlearn.com/amazing-trick-for...s-in-photoshop
Here's another one: http://phlearn.com/forget-color-corr...olor-selection


If you're willing to pay for a very complete course:
http://farbspiel-photo.com/product/mask-like-pro

[jasonso]

Thanks for the ideas guys. Lenny, thanks for the detailed method, theres a lot in there that I don't understand yet so I'm going to do some reading up and experimenting and might be back with more questions!
Peter, I'll check out those links too

[Preston]

I would not use the magic wand, certainly not a lasso or marquee for any of this. I use two methods primarily, the first is select by color range.

The Magic Wand is notorious for creating halos around objects, especially around leaves or other small details, and they are almost impossible to remove. The select by Color Range is my preferred method, too.

If you have a later version Photo Shop that has the "Refine Edge" option for masks or selections, that will be really helpful. It's a little confusing at first, but there are lots of tutorials on it.

--P

[Bill McMannis]

Try Lightroom; you can select specific areas to work on, without the need for masks or layers.

I hope you don't mind, but I took your photo, put it into LR, and in about one minute, did more or less what you said you wanted.

The result here is quick and crude, but it's just to show what can be possible. I just quickly dodged the entire area of trees and grass, added some contrast and boosted the highlights.

You can easily do the same for the sky, or just the grass, or even just one cow.

Nice job on the LR edit. Another quick technique is the graduated filter in LR is ideal for this sort of thing. It is also available in PS within the Camera Raw filter.

[Ari]

Nice job on the LR edit. Another quick technique is the graduated filter in LR is ideal for this sort of thing. It is also available in PS within the Camera Raw filter.

Thanks, Bill; it was quick and dirty, but hopefully the point was made.
I really like graduated filter tool in LR as well; in fact, I now use PS only for spotting and re-sizing, then I move on to LR for the image control.

[Henry Ambrose]

Old school:

Select the sky, feather a few pixels, save that selection, copy and paste in a new layer. Use the eraser tool set to a weak value and smallish brush size. Hide the background layer. Carefully slide the eraser along the horizon line on the sky copy layer, then click to show the background. Back on the sky copy layer set opacity as you like. Having saved the selection, you can use that for isolating the background for work there or further work on the sky.

[john borrelli]

I wish I was a better photoshopper. The comments above are from people who know what they are doing whereas my comments are from someone who does not.

The first thing I tried to do was be meticulous with the initial selection. This usually meant getting in there with the lasso tool and zooming in so that your selection is as precise as possible. It is a tedious thing.

I do use Lightroom for lightening and darkening areas of my landscape images and there seems to be less problems in lightroom than in photoshop and you don't need a lasso tool. What i did when I used photoshop and got jaggeddy results around the selections in those thin pixel-size border areas between light and dark areas was to use the Photoshop cloning tool. I magnified the area as high as possible and then selected a light leaf fragment to cover up a leaf area that was now too dark, a light bit of sky to cover a corrected area that looks too dark, etc. It was often just lightening a part of the selection that came out too dark and darkening the part of the selection that looked too light. I would decrease the sizes of the cloning tool until the changes were so small when you view the image at the actual image size you can not see the corrections. Reducing opacity of the cloning tool can also help to smooth the contrasty lines as well.