essential skills: digital photography in available light
- The advantage of using the multiply technique over a gamma adjustment in Levels is that we
can now apply a small amount of Gaussian Blur (Filter > Blur > Gaussian Blur) to this layer. The
Gaussian Blur technique applied to a multiply layer will mainly affect the darker tones. Smoothing
out the detail of the background tones (the shadows) will help draw the viewer’s attention to
the trees (the highlights) resulting in a visual separation between essential and non-essential
information. Without a single selection you can see how we are able to massage the tonality of
images to create the mood we are looking for. Even when tones or colors are relatively close
Photoshop is able to exaggerate these differences to extract the maximum possible impact from
our pixels rich resource.
A complete guide to post-production editing can be found in either Digital Imaging: essential skills
third edition (Elements and CS/CS2 compatible) and Photoshop CS2: essential skills.