In my very first article I explained how we can resurrect a underexposed image by making duplicate copies of the original layer and changing the blending mode to screen above the original.

In this image below, the sky looks pretty good, but the foreground is underexposed.

So I did some photoshop magic, and viola! this is what I came up with.

Here I hit ctrl+J and made one copy of the original and changed it’s blend mode to screen.

I made 2 more copies above the first for a total of 3.  Now the foreground looks acceptable, but the sky has lost saturation.

Merge all copies. While on the top layer. Hit Ctrl + E twice to merge all copies.

Now the MAGIC…a “layer mask”. Create the layer mask by clicking it’s icon.

While on the layer mask, make a gradient black to white between the two lines left.

The layer mask, masks out the unsaturated sky from screen layer above, allowing the original sky to show, while keeping the lightened foreground.

That’s it.  Save it as a JPG now.

The MIZ

(c) 2006 Robert Mizerek [contact] [bio ]

See other tips from The MIZ – Photoshop WIZ