Creating high-quality contrast masks

[Xenedis]

Greetings, Photoshoppers.

This one's the for landscape/seascape photographers out there like myself who like to blend multiple exposures of a scene into one composite image (for dynamic range), and who have found that traditional selection tools are inadequate for tricky, detailed images.

Seascape photographer Brent Pearson has produced a series of three videos which shows you how to create and refine a high-quality mask using contrast rather than the usual selection tools.

Here are the entries on Brent's blog, from which the videos can be reached:

1. Part 1 - Creating the mask
2. Part 2 - Tuning the mask
3. Part 3 - Playing with the sky

This is a technique I haven't yet used, but I'm going to give it a go on one of my images this afternoon. I'll post the results (assuming I succeed).