Last week I took a much-needed holiday, but I still couldn’t leave my camera behind. I visited St Ives in Cornwall and the weather was glorious. Surprisingly, even the mid-day sun didn’t stop the photography opportunities. Here is a very simple shot of a field from a walk I was on.
Now I need to admit to being a little lazy when I took this shot. I didn’t use an ND Grad on the sky. I reasoned that as the sun was behind me and there was blue sky visible, I didn’t need it (that’s my simple rule of thumb by the way). When I now look at the image, I really would have benefited from using a 0.3 (1-stop) ND Grad. Here’s the image with the original unadjusted sky.
To fix the problem I added a Curves layer to the image in Photoshop, with a mask to hide the ground. I then set the blend mode of the Curves layer to Multiple and this is the result. It also gave me a great idea for a book about mastering the various techniques for masking in Photoshop. It’s too easy to forget these things when you get used to using plug in’s.
Hope you like the image and have a great weekend.
The Lightweight Photographer 
Hello Robin,
If you do decide to create a book on masking with PS like you did in today’s photo that you posted, I will be one of your first buyers of it! I still struggle quite a bit, get frustrated, then click on the edit in one of the NIK filters option, where I can use control points to accomplish almost the same thing. But it is that “almost” that makes me realize doing it with layers & masks in PS would probably give me more control with better results.
Jed
Thanks Jed. I’m now working on this book. And as you say, wilst the Nik Tools are good, Photoshop has a lot more precision and power when you know how to use it.
Perfect enhancements … not too much … just right!
Thank you