Digital BW, The Print

Respectfully, I think you are all making it a bit hard.

No canned action is going to meet the needs of the majority of your images,
and the mathematical accuracy of an automated function is likely to
introduce banding.

This is what I do:

1. Make a new curves adjustment layer, drop the highlight point on the curve
to about 50% or less, significantly darkening the whole image.

2. I then set the fill of the adjustment layer to black. (this will
completely mask out the effects of the adjustment)

3. Then I get a huge (600-800 pixel) soft-edged paintbrush set to 0-30%
opacity and paint white in the mask of the adjustment layer where I want the
image darkened, gradually building up the effect.

This way I can build up the effect slowly and customize it to the image, go
back and reduce the overall effect by changing the curve or opacity of the
adjustment layer. As well, the randomness of applying with a brush avoids
banding.


James Haney
jhaney@...