this snowy landscape photo has a serious problem shared by many similar images
you can't see the detail in the snow in this video i'm going to show you how to easily fix this with
a simple adjustment although i'm using photoshop for this you can do exactly the same thing in
affinity photo i'll start by adding a new levels adjustment layer to the image then i'll move this
center control level over to the right when i do this you can see the detail returning to the snow
unfortunately it's also making the rest of the image look terrible and dark areas are turning
black the way to fix this is with a layer mask that targets the adjustment onto only the snow
to create this i'll select the mask attached to the levels adjustment layer and invert it
this turns the mask black which hides the effect of the adjustment across the entire image
i can now use the brush tool to paint white onto the mask in areas where there's snow the
only problem i'm going to have with this though is that it's impossible to paint only over the snow
but there is a technique we can use to make this easy we can create a selection
using the information in the image to select only the lightest areas then when we paint
through this selection it restricts the brush strokes to the snow to create this selection
we'll use the channels window where you can see the individual color channels in the image
because there's very little color in this image all three channels are roughly the same but that
isn't always the case i'll pick the blue channel for this by clicking it i can then
load the channel as a selection using this icon at the bottom of the channels window
you can now see the marching ants appear on the image showing there's an active selection
i then need to return to viewing the colour image rather than the blue channel by clicking
the rgb option at the top i can then switch back to the layers window ready for painting the mask
now before i start to paint i'm going to hide the marching ants because they're making it difficult
to see what's happening the easy way to do this is by pressing command and h on my keyboard if you're
using a windows pc that's ctrl h i can now paint onto the layer mask with the brush tool while
using white i'll also configure the brush tool to have a soft edge and an opacity of around 20
to help blend my brush strokes now when i paint with white on the layer mask it's applying the
levels adjustment to those areas as i paint you can see the details returning to the snow
but it's not affecting other areas the reason we didn't see any detail in the snow is because of a
problem i call tonal compression if you look at the original histogram most of the tones in the
snow are compressed into a very small area at the far right unfortunately our eyes have a hard time
of distinguishing between these different tones meaning we don't see any detail this is a typical
problem in many snow and fog scenes especially if you've increased the camera's exposure now you
might be thinking you can easily fix this in your raw converters and in fact some raw converters do
have a levels adjustment you might be able to use but most of the time trying to separate bright
tones in raw processing is extremely difficult now if you want to achieve more control over the mask
you can use a luminosity mask to paint through let's clear this mask and start again
this time rather than using one of the image colour channels i'll use a luminosity masking tool
there are a few of these on the market but the one i'm using here is lumensia and for no other reason
then i like it i'll include a link to it in the youtube video description below using the buttons
in the lumensia interface i can check what we call the lights masks to see which one i want to use
what i'm looking for is a mask that separates the snow and the darker areas in the image
the l2 mask looks about right for this example i can then load that mask as a selection by clicking
the cell button i'll then hide the marching ants as i did before by pressing command
h and now i can paint over the snow in the foreground to apply the levels adjustment
if i hold down my option key and then click the mask thumbnail in the layers window you
can see the mask i've painted notice that i'm painting more white into the foreground than
in the distance this helps to retain the softer misty feel there and creates a feeling of depth
if i make a mistake whilst i'm doing this and paint over an area that i don't want to
i can easily fix it i just need to switch my brush to painting with black rather than white
by pressing x on the keyboard i can then paint over that area where i've made the mistake
now one problem you might encounter when using this technique with some images is that it can
exaggerate colour if this happens you can fix it easily by changing the blend mode of the layer
to luminosity when the mask's finished i can adjust the level settings to refine the effect
and of course i can change the opacity of the levels layer to also control the strength using
a simple levels adjustment i've been able to bring out texture in the snow that's otherwise hidden
if you want to know more about using the levels adjustment in photoshop or affinity go watch
this video next it explains all the controls and how to use them to control image tones