Selecting middle brightness range of a picture

JR
Posted By
John_R._Collins
Apr 30, 2004
Views
214
Replies
7
Status
Closed
Hi all,

I want to create an artisitic effect on a portion of a picture of a house. What I want to do is to create a selection based on a brightness range e.g. 75-180 on the greyscaled version of the picture. I’m thinking that I could somehow use the resulting image as a layer "mask" to select this middle range on the real picture to then "artify" it with brush strokes or whatever.
The image/adjustment/threshold command does only half the job. So, here’s what I have tried. I know that this does not produce a real layer mask. I made 2 copies of my picture. On the upper, I used the threshold set to 75. On the second, I set the threshold to 180. Then, I set the blending mode of the upper threshold layer to subtract. This produces something in between the two threshold images. Then I merged these two layers. What I hoped for is a resulting b&w image where I could select the white (or black) to get my ultimate selection of the greys in the original. However, when I compare this blended and merged layer to the original picture, some of the whitest (snow) areas are included with some of the darkeset areas (background shaded trees).
I have tried almost all of the blending modes to come up with the perfect one but to no avail. Does anyone have a modification to my "method" that would give me what I want?

That is: Is there a way to select out the areas of then middle brightness range in a picture?

John
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RR
Raymond Robillard
Apr 30, 2004
I’m not at home, and I don’t have access to PSE here (only PS7), isn’t there a color range selection in PSE.. ?

My idea is duplicate the image, change it to B&W, then using the color range select command (if it exists in PSE), select only a few colors (which would turn out to be values of gray), with a fuziness level high enough. Add colors untill you have all the selection you whish.

You’ll then have you selection mask.

Ray
DN
DS_Nelson
Apr 30, 2004
I’m going from memory too, but I don’t think the select by color is available in Elements, only in the full version of Photoshop.
BB
Barbara_Brundage
Apr 30, 2004
Dan is right. I guess you could use the replace color dialog, by creating a new layer, making the adjustments to your selection there, filling that with a color that’s not anywhere else in your image and then selecting it>inverse>delete, but it’s kludgy.
JR
John_R._Collins
Apr 30, 2004
Hi,
I have not been idle since my last post. While playing with my threshhold layers, I inverted the one for the brighter (I think) threshold and then used the multiply blend mode. I think this may be it!!!

John

Thanks all for the suggestions.
SS
Susan_S.
Apr 30, 2004
There is a way – it’s loosely based on material from the hidden powers book. (I use a funny shaped curve to do the same thing)
1. Duplicate the background layer
2.Image/adjustments/gradient map
3.Adjust the gradient so that it is black in the areas that you want to select and white elsewhere, by putting in colour stops at the right place. You can use an appropriate gradient map to select just about any region of an image by turning it black and turning the rest white.
4Hit OK and your duplicate image layer will go weird! Midtones will have turned black 5Use the magic wand to select the back bits and use this selection. 6Or select the white bits with the magic wand and hit delete and use the resulting black and transparent layer grouped to a background copy as a layer mask.

Susan S.
JR
John_R._Collins
May 1, 2004
Susan,
I used your suggestion and it worked nicely. You can see the result of my efforts (and your suggestion) by going to <", going to the experiments album and it’s the "house" picture.

What I wanted to do was select the dark areas, particularly the trees and sky, and do a slanted brush stroke on them. Before the brush strokes were added, I had combined 3 layers of effects.

Again, thanks for your tip.

John
SS
Susan_S.
May 1, 2004
I’m glad it helped… and the result is an interesting use of the selection process. I like the background on the trees in particular – it has something of the linocut look, a print technique that I am very fond of and have spent some time (with limited succes) trying to duplicate in Elements.

Susan S

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