Digital BW, The Print

Cleavis,

Have you tried selecting all the very light areas in your image,
feathering about 20-40 pixels or so, (depending on the resolution of
your file), and copying and pasting it to a new layer?  Then select
multiply for that layer. It will give you much more highlight detail.
Then, depending on how it looks, you can reduce the amount of detail by
lowering the opacity of that layer until it looks just right.

You can do the same thing for shadows. Only use the screen mode instead
of the multiply mode.

These two things alone can greatly expand the highlight/shadow detail in
your images. 

In your case, select the areas you want to add contrast in, make the new
copy layer of them, and use the screen mode. This may give you too much
shadow detail. You'll have to reduce the opacity. You can also use a
curve to increase the contrast in this layer.

Jerry

lyonscox wrote:
> 
> I was wondering what methods people are employing when trying to
> adjust the contrast of a narrow tone range, say 5-20%?
> 
> To state it another way...if I were to make a traditional silver
> print and wanted to do this, I would be doing a dodge/burn in very
> specific areas (if using a variable contrast paper, yuck ;-) I would
> use a different filter from the main exposure) and afterwards do
> localized reducing (most of you call it bleaching).
> 
> I've found myself
> A - adjusting curves, generally and repeatedly in small increments.
> B - selecting areas, layer color fill (~25-75%B) set to burn, etc.
> C - using the intuitive dodge & burn tool
> 
> OThers?  Efficient?
> Thanks,
> 
> Cleavis
> 
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