Digital BW, The Print

Rick wrote:
>> This works fine most of the time but whenever I have open,
>> evenly illuminated areas, i.e. blank sky, calm water, I get a slight
>> to horrendous posterization. It's very subtle on the monitor but

Martin wrote:
> This will give you a gradient spread over a much larger area of the image.
> How smooth for your purposes I am not sure but worth a try. (Did I get that
> right Carolyn?)

I don't remember.. <gg>. To make smooth transitions now, I do what you're
suggesting, large - large brushes, they don't give that banding that
feathering/blurring marque selections are known for.  I would have moved to
PS7 for the brush sizes alone.

I usually create a curve adjustment layer, don't do any curve moves (it is
simply acting as a dup image layer), attach a layer mask,  choose multiply
blend mode and then with one large or various sized brushes (or wacomb pen
with variable pressures) paint the the mask to effect the areas of the image
you'd like. This gives me the smoothest transition to date. Then adjust your
opacity to suit your tastes.

Try two ways, keeping the large brush mostly off canvas, using only the edge
for the feather. Switch back to black, and paint inner areas where you want
to erase the effect.. you can achieve a very good smooth mask.

Or, with the layer mask filled with white, select black, and paint with the
largest brush you can inside the image, with a steady hand follow your edges
(or go off the canvas altogether if you're just after the corners), the edge
of the brush creates a good rounded smooth transition at the corners either
way, no banding.

You can also give the curves a tweak in multiply mode for different
strengths and effects.

sorry Rick, not much help here for earlier PS's.
Carolyn