PS-Two "zone" level adjustment question

[nwpoland]

Looking for any tips to avoid this problem...
Say you've got a picture with your subject and then a fair amount of sky. On bright days, the sky can easily become overexposed while the subject may be perfectly exposed. This is easy enough to remedy in PS by selecting the sky (using magic wand or whatever) and either adding an adjustment layer or straight-away adjusting levels to that portion of the layer.

Now enter the problem...when you make this adjustment to the first "zone" (my word)...the border of the selected area is affected and thus it becomes dreadfully obvious that you have edited the photo.

I have tried feather (both small and large amounts) the sky--or whatever I'm selecting--to cause less of an effect. For instance most recently I was feather at about 35px on my 6.1mp image. Maybe that isn't enough?? On some pics, there was a small amount of "glow" around the edges of the adjusted area.

Hopefully some of you PS fanatics know what I'm talking about and can give some tips on decreasing that glow affect. Really the finaly product is great for my taste...but I'm a nit-picker when it comes to things I do.

For examples...pretty much anything at this link with sky was edited using Levels and/or Hue/Saturation:
http://homepage.mac.com/theshattucks/NikonD50/PhotoAlbum25.html (you can see that glow affect most pronounced on the picture with the comment "Looking up from one of our favorite restaurants".

Sorry for the long post...just wanted to be descriptive. Thanks for your help!!

[D Thompson]

On your adjustment layer there should be 2 boxes. Make sure the one on the right (layer mask) is active. Press D for default colors and then X to make black the foreground color. Use a soft brush with low flow (typically 5-8% works good) and paint around the edges of the adjustment. You can switch foreground to white and add to it. Takes a little playing around with but it will blend nicely. Hope this helps.

[nwpoland]

Thanks...I'll give that a shot and see how it comes out.

[barnesquared]

poland, just a question, for that shot you referred to in your original post, did you take two different shots with one exposed for the sky, and one for the subject? or did you just mess with adjustments for the sky (aka you only had one shot)?

[nwpoland]

poland, just a question, for that shot you referred to in your original post, did you take two different shots with one exposed for the sky, and one for the subject? or did you just mess with adjustments for the sky (aka you only had one shot)?

No, just one shot as I wasn't using a tripod. That brings a question though...how exactly do you do what you described?

Let's say...
- Got the camera on a tripod
- You frame the shot
- Focus on the subject and realize that the sky (for example) will be blown out but the subject will be perfectly exposed.

How do you take a second shot metered for the sky without moving the camera? Just by jumping up a couple shutter stops without evaluating that through the viewfinder?

Thanks for the help!

[emalvick]

No, just one shot as I wasn't using a tripod. That brings a question though...how exactly do you do what you described?

Let's say...
- Got the camera on a tripod
- You frame the shot
- Focus on the subject and realize that the sky (for example) will be blown out but the subject will be perfectly exposed.

How do you take a second shot metered for the sky without moving the camera? Just by jumping up a couple shutter stops without evaluating that through the viewfinder?

Thanks for the help!

Poland, you basically hit it spot on. That is where you use full manual or aperture or shutter priority. If you have the shot perfectly exposed for the subject, then you should see what the settings are. You can then change the settings a few f-stops to get the desired exposure for the sky. I find that on my camera, changing the settings will show how the image will look on the LCD (using the LCD as the viewfinder rather than an optical viewfinder). Of course the foreground will get darker as you darken the sky, but you are going for the sky shot only anyway.

You then merge the correctly exposed parts of each shot and you get one perfect image with a nice dynamic range.

Erik

[aparmley]

I believe there is another way to do this, with out using photoshop. Meter for the sky and use fill flash. It might take some practice, but so does the photoshop stuff.

In the event that the sky meters with a SS faster than 1/200, just stop the lens down to F8-F16 to get the SS slower - Flash sync speed is usually maxed out at 1/200 sec with on board, 1/250 sec with hotshoe I think.

[nwpoland]

I believe there is another way to do this, with out using photoshop. Meter for the sky and use fill flash. It might take some practice, but so does the photoshop stuff.

In the event that the sky meters with a SS faster than 1/200, just stop the lens down to F8-F16 to get the SS slower - Flash sync speed is usually maxed out at 1/200 sec with on board, 1/250 sec with hotshoe I think.

That's a good thought but on photos of large buildings or such things which are being shadowed the flash, it doesn't seem like that would work as well as the double-exposure method. Would it?

Thanks for the help with clarifying this issue...it's making sense to me now.