Believe it or not, he was actually blowing kisses!

A selective darkening is one of the techniques I use a lot in my photography. In fact, I use it so much I turned it into a work-flow action so I’ll never have to take these steps again. But then again, I turn everything into actions. Compulsive action maker. Nope, I’m not going to share the action here. Showing you this technique and explaining how this works is a far more valuable present I can give you than just slapping up an action. This opens up a world of options for you in photoshop because you select shadows, highlights and so many other things like this.

Selective Darkening:

Dark items such as t-shirts, shadows, or even black china don’t always end up as dark and deepened as you need them to be. With this method you can select only those areas that really need darkening while leaving the rest of the photo virtually untouched. You won’t have to mess with your overall exposure. This gives you an amazing control over the outcome.

How it’s done:

Open your photo and choose Select >> Color Range from the top bar menu.

You’ll see the dialogue box now. Click on the darkest part of the photo. You can either click on the photo itself or click on the mask. It works both ways. I often start sampling in the actual photo.

Click on the + dropper icon and click the white and light grey areas of your mask (or sample the actual photo) until there’s a more uniform whiteness.

I stopped once I reached this whiteness. Press OK.

You’ll see that only the black/dark parts of your photo are selected now.

Without breaking the selection, click on the adjustment layer icon at the bottom of your layers palette and select Levels from the menu.

Drag the white output slider to the left until you reach a darkening you like. For me that usually lies somewhere between 160 and 170.

Rename the layer to Blackening or Darkening and play with the opacity until you’re satisfied with the result. Use a soft white brush to paint on areas you didn’t want to darken.

If you record these steps while you’re taking them, you’ll be able to tweak every photo in a split second from now on.

With lots of love and kisses!