Contrast masking

[DanS]

Anyone have a simple/quick method for building a contract mask? I have a photo that included a near-completely blownout sky, and tree branches in the blownout sky area. I want to replace the sky, but the selection tools couldn't differentiate between branches and sky in most instances.

The Lighten / Darken tool helped (is that synonymous with dining / burning?) but didn't take the lights and darks to 0 and 255.

Coming from Ps, and made the break - didn't renew my subscription. This is one of only a few remaining workflows that I'm trying to replicate in Pixelmator Pro. Great piece of software IMO

Thx

[mccoytest]

Can we see the image?

P.S. It's a good idea to poof read [ ] before posting. (re: contract/contrast/dining)

[DanS]

Trying to upload, but when I Paste, a link is pasted, not the image. What's the best way to get the image to you?

Thx

[mccoytest]

Well, there are many ways. The simplest for me has been using the Mac screencopy mechanism to capture the image area [ ⇧⌘4 ] to the desktop then used the (above) "image" to place the file here. If you want to send the actual image - probably not needed - you could use the pixelmator upload utility https://upload.pixelmator.com and post the linked result here. like https://upload-cdn.pixelmator.com/Scree ... .12-AM.jpg

[DanS]

Here's the Before




Here's the After - sloppy, but it was a test for me to mask something that requires fine masking in PPro

[mccoytest]

Such a noisy photo with what must be snow (?) - I can think of nothing - Hopefully someone else may have an idea. Can PS do anything like this?? Are you just trying to replace the sky or what?

[DanS]

Yeah, snow. Just trying to replace the sky. In Ps, one or two of the RGB channels (combined) would often show more contrast, which then could be dodged and burned to a very accurate mask.

Anyways, thx for having a look

[Lysander]

For just a sky replacement Luminar Neo is easy:

[mccoytest]

This is my feeble attempt - no masking. I isolated the trees above the house, selected (copied) and used threshold to remove the lighter color from the new layer. Got some Iowa sky/clouds inserted and placed below all. Took original tree copy and selected and removed the light background,

I'm not sure I described that exactly right, but this is what I ended up with. I remember I did have to lighten the branches and enhance my sky a bit.