Digital BW, The Print

I do it one of two ways, depending on how big the scan is. I 
normally work with a 999 pixel brush, with soft edges. I burn in 
using the Highlight and Midtones tool. (But make sure you don't 
burn in highlights too much using the Midtones tool, cause it'll 
leave this very grainy look, because the midtone tool is grabbing 
only the midtone grain.) You can do this locally, if you don't want 
too much of a uniform line of burning. (Why no brush allowed 
larger than 999, I want to know?)

If the scan is large, say 24x24x360dpi, I use the lasso tool and 
draw a very crude selection all the way around the outer regions 
of the image. Then I feather it 250pixels (thanks Jerry, didnt' 
know you could feather a feather either). Then I invert the 
selection and use Curves to burn down this outer area. You can 
use Levels also, but sometimes you want to burn down the 
highlights more, so Curves is more accurate.

If I'm working with an image that's scanned full-frame, with the 
black edges showing, you've also got to remember to use the 
MagicWand to deselect the white area outside the frame, or else 
you'll end up burning down that area too, which is bad.

You can use this same Lasso technique to do vaseline-edge 
diffusion too -- after you burn in the edges, then keep that 
feathered selection and then do Gaussian Blur on the outer 
areas, where vaseline would normally be. But make SURE to 
then immediately view the image at 100% and then AddNoise to 
rebuild the texture of the film grain, or else you'll have this 
"feminine hygiene" look to the image -- too gooshy/poetic/soft. 
And it'll looked Photoshopped too.

If you want to do a view camera 4x5 tilt look, then do a mask with 
a Gradient Blend, and then a GaussianBlur, and the focus will 
taper out in a linear fashion, just like a view camera focus would. 
But again, don't forget the rebuild the grain structure in the 
GBlurred areas.

These are just my simpleton techniques. And I ALWAYS work 
right on the image, never on an Adjustment Layer. You gotta feel 
the rush of maybe screwing up; you can't leave yourself a safety 
net...!

http://marktucker.com/


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--- In DigitalBlackandWhiteThePrint@y..., "mkravit" 
<michael.kravit@w...> wrote:
> I guess this is a bit off topic, but in the realm of digital printing 
> is part of the process. I would like to know how people are 
> accomplishing edge burning techniques in Photoshop?