There are three ways to deal with muddy highlights. The first is to use the Blend If sliders to “pop” the photo’s highlight values through the texture. The second is to use a Curves adjustment layer and its mask to brighten selected areas. And the third is to use a layer mask to gently paint the texture away from chosen regions. These techniques can be applied alone or in combination.
Option 1: Use the Blend If Sliders
Since the flower and vase were captured in front of a stark white background, the Blend If sliders will fail miserably in this example. Nonetheless, let’s take a peek at the process. In the Layers panel, activate the texture layer and choose Layer>Layer Style>Blending Options. To “pop” the highlights of the underlying layer through the texture, hold Option (PC: Alt) and slide the left half of the Underlying Layer highlight slider inward. Holding Option (PC: Alt) allows the highlights to push gently through rather than “tearing” through. In this example, the white background is the first thing to come through.
Therefore, press Cancel to exit the dialog.
Option 2: Use a Curves Adjustment Layer
In this instance, my desire is to brighten the original photo and not the texture. Begin by clicking on the Background layer to activate it. Now click on the Curves icon in the Adjustments panel. Switch on the on-image controls by clicking on the hand icon in the Adjustments panel.
Find a highlight that you’d like to brighten and click-and-drag upward on the image to lighten it. If contrast appears flat, grab the shadow (left-hand) slider and drag slightly inward.
If the contrast changes over-saturate the colors, visit the Layers panel and change the Curves layer blend mode to Luminosity.
Since the Curve affected the entire photo, activate the Curves layer mask. Grab a soft-edged black brush set to 100% opacity and flow and paint over areas that you wish to reset to their former brightness. In this example, I painted over the texture regions.
Option 3: Gently Paint the Texture Away
Since the texture is in Multiply mode, it is still muddying the highlights. To restore them, activate the texture layer and click the Add layer mask icon at the base of the Layers panel. Using a soft-edged black brush set to 30% opacity and 100% flow, paint over all highlights that you intend to restore. Be sure to vary the size of the brush as you paint. Don’t hesitate to paint over regions more than once to bring out even more brightness. In addition to lightening, notice how this process adds dimensionality to the scene.
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Just used the Blend If sliders. Great results. You are so generous Mark–so grateful! Betsey
Hi Mark, been with you for a number of years, your stuff has been very helpful,and I have use many in my teaching at our club.
The one thing I always wonder is the way you chance sizes with bracket keys. The way I do it is not new and is not hard but I never see it demoed … Maybe it can not be done on MAC, and you know everything they do is correct??
With the brush etc…to change the size of the tool on a PC, hold down the Alt key, and the “right hand button” on the mouse. Then drag left /right to make bigger/smaller, or drag up screen/down to make it soft/hard. …I wonder why this is not promoted?
Tnx for all your help on PS-CS6 Don
Thanks for your lovely comments, Betsey. It’s always such a pleasure to hear from you.
Hi Don. As you know, there are usually four or five ways to accomplish every task in Photoshop. I’m so accustomed to changing brush size using the bracket keys that I have never addressed the alternative approach. Here are the steps to using the approach that you mention:
Mac: Hold Control-Option and drag left/right in order to decrease/ increase brush size. Hold Control-Option and drag up/down to decrease/ increase brush hardness.
PC: Press Control-Alt and the Right Mouse button, then drag left right to decrease/ increase brush size and up/down to decrease/ increase brush hardness.
Hi Mark, I tried this technique on another image trying to “pop the highlights of the underlying layer.” However when I look at the Blend If section I see that the left half of the Underlying Layer highlight slider is already all the way to the left, so I can’t move it. Is there are remedy? Thanks so much, Betsey
Rushing to the airport, Mark answered my question above. I had misread his directions and he kindly straightened me out. What a devoted teacher!