D&B Curves vs. 50 % Fill Gray Layer ???

[BigBlaze]

- What is the difference between using a Light/Dark curve vs. using a Layer fill with 50 % gray in soft light mode ?

- Is using multiple curves adjustment layers better than using 50% gray layers for high end retouching?

- Using the curve, I have to build a set of 4 layers: light curve, dark curve, high contrast curve and hue/saturation layer for desaturation. How do you save this set ? Do you create a action ?

- How do you toggle between layers fast ? Do you know a keyboard shortcut ?

Thank you,

http://www.jeannichols.com/

[DannyRaphael]

First of all welcome. I see you joined RP awhile back and this is your first post. Congratulations on taking that step!

I divided your original questions into different threads (blend modes, WACOM setup and these questions) to increase the likelihood of getting replies. It's usually a better tactic to have multiple threads vs. one with several more-or-less unrelated questions.

For easy addition of multiple adjustment layers, recording an action to do this is an excellent idea.

Keyboard shortcuts for switching between layers:
* alt + ] to move focus to next layer up
* alt + [ to move focus to next layer down

This should get the ball rolling on other replies.

[DannyRaphael]

I meant to add...

I personally prefer multiple adjustment layers over a layer filled with 50% grey then painting (airbrush setting) with white or black. For me it is easier to control the outcome, plus adjustment layers do not add to the file size of the image.

[cricket1961]

Hello BigBlaze

Check out my blog. I have a post on this subject.

http://www.retouchpro.com/forums/blogs/cricket1961/

Chris

[BigBlaze]

Dear Chris,

When talking about soft light you mean the blending mode of the layer ?

Thank you,

BigBlaze

[KR1156]

option > ] works great to toggle between layeres if you're a lefty.

-anyone have a custom key command set up to switch between layeres, i think Markzebra mentioned somethign about that in the past....mark if you're reading can you help with that or if anyone else has any input.

i had hotkeys at my old job, but not at home.

[cricket1961]

BigBlaze

Yes I do mean the blending mode of the layer.

Chris

[BigBlaze]

Chris, If I get that right, you do your D+B on a SoftLight layer fill with 50% grey ? You don't use the curve Light/Dark ?

Thank you for your patience, french is my primary language.

BigBlaze

[shellby]

Hello

When I work from home I use 50% grey layer to do skin

When I go into studios in London most of them request that I use the curves method as this is more widely known and used here in the UK.

[byRo]

[Philosophy]
When qualified people give you multiple answers to the same question, it's probably because there isn't just one correct answer
[/Philosophy]

shelby summed it up...

Originally Posted by shellby

..When I work from home I use 50% grey layer to do skin

When I go into studios in London most of them request that I use the curves method as this is more widely known and used here in the UK.

..another thing....

Originally Posted by DannyRaphael

....plus adjustment layers do not add to the file size of the image.

Danny, that's almost true....
A simple adjustment layer will not have any significant size overhead. But in this case we will be painting on the mask. Thus, we will be generating a channel for this information. Photoshop will try to optimize this channel, a few localized strokes will not generate a full image, but adjustmente over the whole image will fill up a channel.
If you use two adjustment layers then you will be generating two channels, compared with the 50% grey (in RGB mode) will have three channels.

Now to reply to the original question

Originally Posted by Chris' Blog

But I have yet to come up with one good reason not to use the fill.

Maybe not exactly good, but.....
A soft-light blend will never affect pure white or pure black, and even if it isn't pure you're going to need a lot more D&B. Maybe you're lucky to only get good images to retouch where such extremes don't happen.

In general, I stick with two levels layers with no changes on the black/white point, just fixing the appropriate output level to 50% - although I will agree that, by doing this I must forfeit the highlight/midtone/shadow control of the D&B tools.

Rô

[cricket1961]

Good explanation Ro

I do get some good images to work on, however, the majority of them can be quite ... nasty in terms of skin condition and sometimes exposure.
However, I don't ever get skin that has pure white and or black in it. And if I did, I would attack that problem in a different way.

I rarely if ever use the dual curve adjustment layer technique mostly because curves moves in such a non-linear way. The colors just tend to move differently and introduce contamination along the way.

Chris

[edgework]

I've tried double layer methods and don't like them. For me, D & B is a gradual process, building up the effect with multiple strokes. At times, a given area will require lightening and darkening in close proximity. With a single layer, a lighten stroke, however it is generated, does precisely that with no conflicting influence. With multiple layers, it's possible to have both working on the same region in ways that produce unexpected and unwanted artifacts. You find yourself trying to darken a spot and it just won't do what you want. You check the mask of the other layer and a stroke added many steps back is in the way. With a single layer, you are connected directly to the task at hand, lightening and darkening, without having to worry about technical glitches.

[byRo]

Originally Posted by cricket1961

....because curves moves in such a non-linear way. The colors just tend to move differently and introduce contamination along the way.

Agreed, Chris, when using RGB-mode soft-light D&B on skin, the colour is more natural; the highlights get less saturated and the shadows more so.

However, non-organic surfaces will react differently, with less variation in saturation. So for these it would seem that Lab mode works best.

I posted a little experiment below, applying a shadowed greyscale ball to a skin-toned fill layer.
Maybe I did something wrong, but it seems that the adjustment layers made a big mess.

Rô

[BigBlaze]

In conclusion, painting with a soft brush (white or dark) on a layer in softlight blending mode fill with 50% grey is the best option for skin retouching.

Please tell me about brush opacity and flow.

- low opacity 5 to 25% and flow set to 100% ?

Thank you to senior members and moderators for your recommendations.

BigBlaze

[Markzebra]

Shellby said it right, in fact here they seem to think dual curves its the only way to do it, They are usually called D or L. If they catch you doing anything else then there are the technically challenged that will think you dont know what your doing.

There really is no Better or Worse way.. the advantage with Ovlay or softlight is that it allows the painting of colour particularly useful when trying to hit back very desaturated highlights - BUT YOU CAN STILL SET UP A DARKEN CURVE that will do the same thing. You've just got to either adjust the colour curves as well as the composite. Another method that is used very often is to Group a Hue/Saturation layer with your darken Curve - this allows you to set any colour you want. Its horses for courses, There are even people that started in the old houses that still do it dodge and burn tools on flat pixels though

And yes its very easy to set up an action, one to activate your D curve and one to activate your L curve, just got to make sure you name them the same each time.

[cricket1961]

Rô

It is true that brushing on a softlight grey filled layer can have its detriments on non-organic objects. Especially where gradients are concerned. At that point it is necessary to attack differently, or if you need to do softlight, then another softlight grey filled layer above it with noise added to a mask of the layer below it will usually help that out.

BigBlaze

I tend to start out with smaller brushes at a 100% view with the brushes opacity set to @25%. I have the opacity of the pen set to pen pressure. I do not use flow at all.
THen I move out to smaller views and larger brushes with less opacity.

And there really isn't a "right way" to do things with skin. Softlight, in my opinion, does the best job. Some people swear by the curves method. Some things softlight does not work well with. It really depends a lot on how the image was shot, the lighting used, the contrast of the image etc.

Hope it helps.

Chris

[BigBlaze]

Bonsoir Chris,

Smaller view, 50%, 25% ?

Thank you,

BigBlaze

[cricket1961]

Yes for the smaller view. Just go with the standard command-minus keys to step down. those will give you the best reproduction views for what you need to do.

Chris

[abdul10000]

BigBlaze,



You might find this thread useful:


http://www.retouchpro.com/forums/pho...ackground.html

[rovis]

I do it the other way, I usually start with a 12,5% zoom, then zoom in to 25%, 50% and then to 100% if I need to...

[kyriakos]

cricket1961

I tend to start out with smaller brushes at a 100% view with the brushes opacity set to @25%. I have the opacity of the pen set to pen pressure. I do not use flow at all.
THen I move out to smaller views and larger brushes with less opacity.

Hi Chris,

What do you mean by you don't use flow at all...do you turn it down to 1%?

Thanks.

[DannyRaphael]

Originally Posted by kyriakos

cricket1961

Hi Chris,

What do you mean by you don't use flow at all...do you turn it down to 1%?

Thanks.

Just a guess...I suspect Chris uses a tablet, therefore uses tablet settings and pen pressure to control flow rate. Don't use a tablet myself, so I cannot confirm or recommend setting values.

[John Wheeler]

Originally Posted by kyriakos

cricket1961 Hi Chris,
What do you mean by you don't use flow at all...do you turn it down to 1%?
Thanks.

Hi kyriakos
That's a good question yet you might not get an answer from the original contributors because the thread is about 4 years old. Danny's suggestion is definitely one possibility.

Here is my guess. I think that Chris had the flow set to 100% so as to effectively disable that feature. Otherwise, for each single stroke of the brush, flow keeps spurting out more D&B as you move the brush (so to speak). You have some control of this rate and spacing from the Brush panel yet its pretty tough to control. With that lack on total control with "Flow", I think Chris just turned it off. For D&B I believe that Chris was in addition to having the pen pressure control opacity, he was just using multiple brush strokes to add up to the D&B desired. Seems to give the most user control that way. I don't think there is a right way to do this. Just whatever works best for you. Hope this is useful for you.

[RobertAsh]

Hi John,

Thanks for resurrecting this thread

I have a quick question (2 actually) for the experts here:

1. I learned a dodge/burn method using a 50% gray layer in Overlay mode.
   • However, this was a landscape photography seminar, not skin retouching.
   • Does soft light work better for skin? Sounds like 'yes'. But what about retouching dark skin?
2. I didn't like the Overlay method because it tended to shift colors, especially in skin tones.
   • So now I experimented with using Exposure layers instead, one for darkening and one for lightening. That's my method now. I have an action that creates a black layer mask then I brush white where I want the darkening/lightening.
   • Any thoughts about pros/cons for this method?

[John Wheeler]

Hi Robert

Kyriakos deserves the thanks for starting the thread a couple post before me.

In regards to your question about using Exposure. Does that mean you are using a couple Exposure Adjustment Layers? What are the settings you use? Just changing the exposure control? and to what level? Or did I totally misunderstand.

[kyriakos]

Thanks everyone for the replies.

John, can you elaborate why Flow set to 100% turns it off?
I understand the rest of the Softlight technique Chris described, but the flow is throwing me off.

[RobertAsh]

Originally Posted by kyriakos

Thanks everyone for the replies.

John, can you elaborate why Flow set to 100% turns it off?
I understand the rest of the Softlight technique Chris described, but the flow is throwing me off.

It doesn't turn Flow control off. It keeps Flow control at its default value -- 100%. If you don't touch the default then you're not using it to control anything.

What Chris is effectively saying is that he does not use the Flow control at all. Which has the same effect as turning the control off.

[John Wheeler]

ADDED EDIT: I parallel posted with Robert.

Hi kyriakos
Brushes and all of their settings can be pretty involved. I will assume that there what you need to understand is how the Brush "flow" fits in with the "opacity" setting.

In the image below I am brushing with a full black on a full white background. I set the spacing of the brush tip to be where each tip placed in the image would be next to each other (of course until the paths get too close together). In the upper half of the image, I am brushing horizontally with a single stroke at a tighter and tighter pitch with the settings of Opacity =50% and Flow = 100% (did this by stroking a path). With the settings as given it places down a 50% gray level (50% of the way from black to white). With this single stroke any overlapped area stays at the same level of gray.

In the lower half of the image the settings are Opacity = 50% and the Flow = 50%. I vertically inverted the image on the bottom so the end points of top and bottom would be near each other. Think of Flow as a multiplying modifier to the Opacity setting. The initial ink put down is 25% gray (50% x 50%). Note that as the lines get closer together and the brush tips overlap that the overlap areas get darker (unlike the top image). With Flow less than 100% it allows build up of ink up and to the same point as the level set by the opacity. Note that the end points of top and bottom images have the same gray level at the end. So Flow allows the overlapping bush tips that are laid down to incrementally add up yet only to the point that it equals the Opacity value.

As a reminder, both of these images were made with a single stroke. As you stroke additional times, both images will get darker.

I believe again that Chris left Flow off because the amount of D&B that is effectively done on the image would be dependent on how much overlap in laid down brush tips which is dependent on both the brush path and brush dynamics (e.g. brush tip spacing, etc). By leaving the Flow at 100%, the result you get with a single brush stoke eliminates all the issues with laid down brush tips overlapping.

If that does not help keep asking.

Brush-Opacity-vs-Flow.jpg

With the above in mind, here is the link to the help file that covers Opacity and Flow and a quote of the particular seciton.

http://help.adobe.com/en_US/photosho...605325F2a.html

Opacity Sets the transparency of color you apply. As you paint over an area, the opacity will not exceed the set level no matter how many times you move the pointer over the area, until you release the mouse button. If you stroke over the area again, you will apply additional color, equivalent to the set opacity. Opacity of 100 percent is opaque.

Flow Sets the rate at which color is applied as you move the pointer over an area. As you paint over an area, keeping the mouse button down, the amount of color will build up based on the flow rate, up to the opacity setting. For example, if you set the opacity to 33% and the flow to 33%, each time you move over an area, its color moves 33% towards the brush color. The total will not exceed 33% opacity unless you release the mouse button and stroke over the area again.

ADDED EDIT: I called Flow at 100% being turned off (may be wrong terminology) because at 100% how the brush behaves is totally determined by the Opacity value (and other Brush Panel settings). Just easier for me to think of it that way.

[RobertAsh]

Originally Posted by John Wheeler

Hi Robert

Kyriakos deserves the thanks for starting the thread a couple post before me.

In regards to your question about using Exposure. Does that mean you are using a couple Exposure Adjustment Layers? What are the settings you use? Just changing the exposure control? and to what level? Or did I totally misunderstand.

Hi Kyriakos,

Thanks for resurrecting this thread, it's very useful.

Hi John,

I use two Exposure layers:

1. one named Darken set at -1 stop
2. one named Lighten set at +1 stop

Both have their masks set to black. Then I use a white brush at different opacities to brush in the lightening and darkening (dodging and burning) where I want it. I can also adjust the Exposure value if I need to. And the opacity of the layer. Gives me a rich range of controls.

I've found that Exposure layers preserve skin tones better than a gray Overlay layer did. Was wondering whether Soft Light would be better than either but I can experiment and see for myself if no one here has done that already.

Robert

[John Wheeler]

Hi Robert

As always, all the info below if based on my own analysis and IMHO with the potential for error yet I believe it should be good.

Thanks for the extra info. I will provide some thoughts yet first there is one point of confusion for me in your question:

I've found that Exposure layers preserve skin tones better than a gray Overlay layer did. Was wondering whether Soft Light would be better than either

This may be semantics yet I use the word "tone" as the exactly what D&B is trying to change. If you want the tone preserved, then don't brush any changes on the skin (I think I might be missing something in your question though).

Now if you are talking about preserving Hue/Sat then that is another matter. For some D&B approaches you can have some Hue/Sat changes. To avoid those, setting the adjustment Layer to Luminosity Blend will preserve the Hue exactly and hold the Sat best it can with Luminosity taking priority.

All the different approaches on D&B have their pros and cons. A lot depends on the effect you like and with which you used and with which you are productive. All of them raise or lower tone. Some just raise or lower tone quicker in shadows/midtones/highlights and the transfer curves in some cases are linear (less Hue shift) while others are non-linear or multiple linear segments. This makes comparing different schemes not straightforward.

I believe that the D&B tools are the standard with which I like to compare. The D&B tools have options to primarily affect shadows, midtones, highlights separately and a check option to preserve some tones. The big issue with the D&B tools is just using it on a pixel layer which is limiting. First, let me point you to a post I made very recently on how to recreate the D&B tools with gray (or transparent) layers:
http://www.retouchpro.com/forums/pho...tml#post300765

With that link and the known functionality of the D&B tools I can give feedback on how the different approaches compare to the D&B tools (this is based on examining the transfer curves of the various approaches). Since you used Overlay at some point I thought I would start there.

D&B using Overlay Blend starting with solid gray/transparent Layer.

• Brushing with white low opacity (or > 50% gray): This has the same transfer curve as an Exposure Adjustment Layer with Exposure set to 2.2 or a Levels Adjustment Layer with the White Point slider set at 128 and then painting white on a Black Layer Mask. This would be similar to Dodging at the higher midtones with a sharp transition in behavior above and below 50% gray value in the image.

• Brushing with Black low opacity or (< 50% gray): This has the same transfer curve as a Levels Adjustment Layer with the Black Point slider set at 128 and then painting white on a Black Layer Mask. This is identical to the Burn tool set to shadows and no tone protection.

So Overlay is an odd combination and as well as a sharp transition in D&B behavior at the 50% gray point.

D&B Using Exposure Adj Layer (Mask Black) and Exp set to +1EV or -1EV

• Brushing Mask with White low opacity for +1EV case: This is the same as using a Levels Adjustment Layer with White Point slider set to 186. Similar to using Overlay for >50% gray just not as strong. Similar to Dodging High Mid Tones. Non linear transition at image pixel values of 186

• Brushing Mask with White low opacity for -1EV case: This is the same as using a Levels Adjustment Layer with White Output Level set to 186 and Brushing white on black Layer Mask. This is identical to using the Burn tool set to Highlights and Preserve Tones turned off. The transfer curve is totally linear

Using the Exposure Levels as you have indicated have more impact on the highlights with less impact on midtones and only slight impact with the shadows. This is not good nor bad, just giving you a reference point.

I already covered SoftLight Blend in the link I provided above which is mostly for D&B for midtones. The curve is similar to a gamma transfer curve (smooth and curved) and not linear.

One of the advantages of using solid gray/transparent Layers is that you can Dodge and Burn in one Layer instead of breaking into two Layers. Here is an alternate approach to D&B midtones with two separate Layers that has a larger swing then using the SoftLight with Gray level approach:

For Dodging
- Add Levels Adjustment Layer with Black Layer Mask
- To duplicate SoftLight Blend with Gray Layer technique for Dodging, set the mid Gamma slider to 2.0. This gives a larger impact to the low midtones
- To have a larger impact instead on high midtones, reset the Gamma slider to 1.0 and change the Blend mode to Screen
- To have max impact on center midtones with similar impact on low and high midtones, use Screen Blend mode "and" set the Gamma to 2.0
- Paint mask with white and low opacity to Dodge

For Burning
- Add Levels Adjustment Layer with Black Layer Mask
- To duplicate SoftLight Blend with Gray Layer technique for Burning, set the mid Gamma slider to 0.5. This gives a larger impact to the low midtones
- To have a larger impact instead on high midtones, reset the Gamma slider to 1.0 and change the Blend mode to Multiply
- To have max impact on center midtones with similar impact on low and high midtones, use Multiply Blend mode "and" set the Gamma to 0.5
- Paint Layer Mask with white and low opacity to Burn

This last D&B technique uses smooth transfer curves very similar to D&B tools set to midtones or the SoftLight Blend with Gray Layer technique. It can have a larger range than the SoftLight technique as well.

This may be TMI yet still hope that you or some reader finds it useful.