As Junko and I work our way through the photoshop lessons by MattK (mattk.com), we're finding it fun to find old photos in RAW that we had not yet processed, or only processed using very early knowledge of LightRoom. Today's work focused on masking layers that allow you control how you are seeing adjustment masks or other layers. The original for this photo was a long exposure shot just after sunrise on the Big Island of Hawaii at Laupahoehoe Beach. Junko was nearby using a faster shutter speed for action capture, while I used the slower shutter speed to slow down the movement and create a smooth flow. I then used a sky from another image taken with less rock and more sky but within a short time of the original. You can see Junko's at: https://365project.org/jyokota/365/2020-12-27
thank you for posting this. Really interesting to see the before and after. Amazing how much extra detail that you have managed to bring out. Impressive to see how you swapped the sky and still managed to keep the rock spray.
It seems to me yours is a bit trickier than @jyokota 's since you have the spray crossing into the sky.
While the contrast manipulations work great on the rock to bring out the details, I feel they are too strong for the spray area - it looks brightened and the horizon line is much stronger than on the right half of the image.
I'm not quite sure how to address this, but as your lesson was on masked layers and you mentioned contrast, my first suggestion would be to locally reduce the opacity of those layer(s) that contribute to that effect. If you only used contrast, increasing clarity might be a better choice for that area ...
Let me know if any of that helps (or makes sense ;-)
@bpfoto This is very useful! I know exactly what you are talking about in the spray -- I focused on not losing it and then lost sight of what I needed to do to handle the exaggerated contrast that resulted. As I develop more control, I'm hoping I get better at catching all the spots that need the work. Thanks for taking the time to respond so thoughtfully.
While the contrast manipulations work great on the rock to bring out the details, I feel they are too strong for the spray area - it looks brightened and the horizon line is much stronger than on the right half of the image.
I'm not quite sure how to address this, but as your lesson was on masked layers and you mentioned contrast, my first suggestion would be to locally reduce the opacity of those layer(s) that contribute to that effect. If you only used contrast, increasing clarity might be a better choice for that area ...
Let me know if any of that helps (or makes sense ;-)