Digital BW, The Print

on 10/28/01 9:14 PM, Cleavis wrote:

> Hhhmmm, it seems I can only print in 8-bit.  Curves and Levels are
> basically the only tool available in 16-bit.  No dodge/burn in 16-
> bit, which I'm accustomed to being a tradition B&W printer at heart.

Clevis

Allow me to continue to contribute my anal retentive spin on things. I come
from a traditional dodge and burn background too BTW, but this is digital,
so lets use it for what it's worth , and what digital does well is allow
CONTROL. The PS dodge and burn tool is almost as primitive as what I can do
with my hands on graded paper, with the exception that you can isolate your
moves to highlights, midtones, and shadows. It's okay. Mostly what I don't
like is on large files there is a delay between what you do and what you
see, then it's hard to undo your mistakes. But I have something far, far,
better to offer.

I prefer to work with adjustment layers, layer masks, and curves. It's a
little complicated at first, because you need to understand curves,
selections, and layer masks, all at once, but once you get it, doing it is
cake.

Say you want to manipulate an area. Take your lasso tool and set a fairly
broad feather for it (how broad depends upon file size, how large an area
you are selecting, and how detailed your selection need be. I work on
largish files so my feather is usually 30-100 pixels. With the lasso loosely
trace the area you want to manipulate. This will give you your marching ants
selection. Immediately go to the adjustment layer pull down menu at the
bottom of your layers pallet and select Curves. What this does is
automatically create a Curves adjustment layer WITH a layer mask which
represents the selection you just made. With the curve you can very
specifically and acutely do whatever type of manipulation you want to the
area, be it dodge, burn, or often of more interest, increase or decrease
contrast, and it will be limited to the area of your mask/selection. Okay
your curves move. At this point that adjustment layer is still the active
layer in your layer pallet, so if you were to start to paint on the image
you'd actually be painting on the mask of that layer. This is good because
this is how you fine tune the selection. Painting black on the mask makes it
so your curve will not affect that area, painting white makes it so it will
affect that area, grays allow for partial effect.

The beauty of this method is many fold. You can decrease it's effect overall
by lowering the layers opacity, you can constantly alter and perfect the
mask till your selection is perfect. You can reopen your curve and tweak it
to perfection, you can duplicate the entire layer with mask to increase it's
affect, and more....

Anyway, I'll stop now until I perceive you care to know more about the finer
points of this process, but I highly recommend you give it a try. As you
work the image, keep making your selections and creating a separate adj.
layer for each one, and give it it's own curve manipulation, then perfect
the selection through the mask. If you make a mask you don't like you can
trash it separately from the curve and vice versa, or you can trash them
both together and start again, so the control is immense.

Todd