Ok, darkening highlights... Before you read this, take a look at the image I've attached.
The top image uses the Shadow/Highlight command to darken the highlights (the amount slider is cranked up to 100%). I couldn't find a better example image. It could be argued that S/H makes the boulders look ok, but as you can see from the version underneath, there is more that can be done for them.
The bottom version is a very mild application of Dan Margulis' 'Overlay blend' technique. There are some videos at KelbyTraining that explain the process (
www.kelbytraining.com/instructors/dan-margulis.html), but you need a subscription to watch them, so I'll give you a brief outline of the process.
Lets take this image. We need to take a look at the channels (so, as far as I know, you can't do this in Photoshop Elements). Select:
Window > Channels if your Channels panel is not open. Click in turn on the Red, Green, and Blue channels - one at a time. We are trying to find out which channel (in this case) contains the darkest trees and the brightest boulders. In this image the Red channel is the best choice. Having determined this, we are ready to blend:
- Create a new layer above your current layer(s)
- Choose: Image > Apply Image...
- Select 'Red' from the 'Channel' drop-down menu
- Select 'Normal' from the 'Blending' menu
- Click 'OK'
You will now have a B/W layer (a copy of the Red channel) at the top of your image's layer stack. Invert this layer (Image > Adjustments > Invert). Doing this will make the trees light, and the boulders dark. At this point there are only a few more things to do:
- Change the blend mode of this layer to 'Overlay' (in the Layers panel)
- Don't panic!
Changing the blend mode of our layer to overlay will get you back 'towards' a normal image - but it'll make the image look (temporarily) awful. Don't worry about that - there's just one final step:
We need to blur the layer -
Filter > Blur > Gaussian Blur. Start with a blur value around 30 pixels, and then adjust up and down to see the effect of the blur (it will add dimension to the boulders). I left the blur at 30 px for the image attached...
This process will mimic S/H - it will lighten the dark areas, and darken the light areas. If you want to completely omit the lightening, duplicate the layer beneath the overlay layer we just created. Place the duplicate above the overlay layer, and set its blend mode to 'Darken'. You can change the opacity of the 'Darken' layer if you want to partially lighten the trees. Another area where you can control the effect is by curving the overlay layer.
It sounds like a lot of work to do this, but in practice it only takes about 15 seconds to do this by hand - and you can always write an action to speed the whole thing up.
Let me know if it works for you :)
Lee.