Bill Allsopp
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Location: Bagworth porridge mines
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Contrast Masking
"Borrowed" from
here - how the term contrast masking arose
Contrast masking is a technique for effectively managing contrast across an entire image. It can be very effective at improving detail in shadow and highlight areas. The technique originated long ago as a rather difficult darkroom process, and can now be done simply using digital processing. In the darkroom, a color transparency is contact printed onto a black and white negative. The result is a black and white negative image of the color positive. Light areas on the positive are dark on the negative and dark areas on the positive are light on the negative. The negative is made “thin” so the blacks are not very opaque. The positive and negative are then “sandwiched” together in exact registration, often with a thin piece of Mylar between them to slightly defocus the black and white negative. The resulting sandwich is then printed using a normal enlarger. This keeps the brightest areas of the original image from burning out and gives the darkest areas more exposure to bring out shadow details that would otherwise be lost in blackness. The same technique is applied digitally with much greater control than was ever possible in a darkroom. This technique simply allows more accurate printing of the information already contained in an image.
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Bill Allsopp
Don't just look, see!
http://www.britishlandscapephotographs.co.uk
http://www.billallsopp.co.uk
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7/Jan/09, 8:31 pm
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Bachs
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Re: Contrast Grading
Great information Bill and the link saved to favourites.
I missed the whole 'wet' film era but it is obvious that a lot of the techniques from those days give superb results when adapted for the digital era.
Thanks for sharing this.
I've now changed my signature to include 'The camera is a means to an end' which I think sums up perfectly my approach.
Last edited by Bachs, 8/Jan/09, 7:43 am
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What do all these buttons do?.
www.steve-perks.com - Scottish Landscape Prints || steveperksphotography.blogspot.com
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8/Jan/09, 7:37 am
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I Simonius
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Registered: 07-2007
Location: Norfolk UK
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Re: Contrast Grading
quote:
martinimages wrote:
Combine and mix the grades within an image and you end up with a picture that has great tonal range, controlled shadows and highlights, and with correct brush use no halos
Martin
Looking at your dvd again Martin, I get the impression (may need to watcha gain to see I fI have misunderstood) the you go through the contrast grading process using BW Pro THREE times for each area e.g. the sky
Using small changes each time
btw in your next vid it would be good if you could say why you paint each little area you paint, this would only work if there was sound of course
Im trying to think how to apply this workflow to photoshop as I havent got ( and am not getting ) BW Pro
im GUESSING that (in CS4) we could use the brightness/contrastadjustments layer (with a black mask instead of white) to replicate the 'Paper exposure' and 'Multigrade' effects of BW Pro?
Last edited by I Simonius, 4/Mar/09, 11:52 am
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Mac PPC Dual 2.3, 6GB Ram, LR2.5 , PsCS4 11.0.1, 5Dmk2 fw 1.1.0,
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4/Mar/09, 10:25 am
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