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[ 69 ]It’s effectively a selective HDR process where you retain more control
over the dynamic range of your final image.- THE SUN AND ITS RAYS
You can easily add the sun and its rays into the sky in an image. Create
a new layer, choose the Polygonal Lasso tool (nested below the Lasso
tool [L] in the Toolbar), and draw the outline of sun rays as you’d
like them to appear. Click on the Foreground color swatch, set it to a
pale yellow, and press Option-Delete (PC: Alt-Backspace) to fill the
selection with the yellow. Press Command-D (PC: Ctrl-D) to deselect.
To remove the harsh edges, apply a Filter>Blur>Gaussian Blur at 20
pixels. To make the rays appear more realistic, set the layer’s blending
mode to Soft Light and the Opacity to 20%.
Finally, those rays need a light source—the sun. Click on the
Create a New Layer icon at the bottom of the Layers panel, and press
B to choose the Brush tool. Using the same yellow color as the rays
and a large brush (set it to 100% Opacity and 30% Flow in the Options
Bar), paint an area where the sun should be. As the light is never a
consistent color, set the brush to a smaller size, change the Fore-
ground color to white, and again apply a spot where your sun is. The
sun and those light rays are now right there in your image. n
a square) at the bottom of the Layers panel to add a mask filled with
black, which will hide the blur. Now, select the Brush tool (B), press
D to set the Foreground color to white, and paint over areas of the
image, such as water or clouds, to apply the look of a long exposure.
Bonus: Try Filter>Blur>Motion Blur for waterfalls.
- BLEND IF FOR SKY SWITCHES
If you have a boring sky, you can easily switch it out with a better one
using Blend If. First, paste in the replacement sky as a new layer. Right-
click on the replacement sky layer and select Blending Options. In the
ALL IMAGES ON THIS SPREAD BY DAVE WILLIAMSBlend If section of the Layer Style dialog, select Blue from the drop-
down, and drag the left slider below Underlying Layer to the right to
bring in the foreground elements of the layer below. Slide it until you
start to see the original sky show through, and then back off a little.
- GRAD KILLER SKY
Another tip for a killer sky is to use the Graduated Filter (G) in Adobe
Camera Raw. Set the Exposure to –1.0, Dehaze to +25, and then drag
the gradient from the top to the bottom of the sky. This will darken the
top portion of the sky, making it look more like a dramatic twilight scene,
but retaining that golden-hour feel. It’s simple but very effective. - MORE DYNAMIC RANGE FROM ONE SHOT
Our eyes can see roughly the equivalent of 20 stops of light, whereas
our cameras only capture around 14 stops. You can bring out more
of those “hidden stops” from one shot by manipulating the HDR
process. To do this, you need to process the image twice in Adobe
Camera Raw, first for the highlights, then again for the shadows,
saving the two different images. Place both of these images in one
Photoshop document, with the darker layer on top. Add a layer mask
and paint over the darker foreground areas using the Brush tool (B)
set to black with an Opacity of 30%, revealing the lighter layer below.