Contrast layers for a portion of an image?

[JDelage]

Hi all,

I'm completely new to this, and I hope someone here can help me. I have a picture of a bald eagle, and the details of the white head are a bit washed out. Same thing for the dark brown body. The pixels have not been clipped.

The rest of th pic is just background, blurred from the shallow DOF, and I don't need any details there.

I'd like to increase contrasts in the head (bright white), the body (dark brown), and the beak (yellow). I tried to boost the contrast in a new layer, but it immediately resulted in clipped highlights.

Is there a way to solve that? From bits and pieces, I understand that the thing to do is to boost contrast selectively to various portions of the pictures. Could anyone help me on how to do that?

Thanks,

JD

[Diana]

Copy your image to a new layer. Then on that layer, use one of the selection tools to select an area you wish to change and press Ctrl-J to copy the area selected to a new layer. Then you can apply your effects to that layer. If it's too intense, you can lower the opacity of that layer. When it looks good, Press Ctrl-E to merge those two layers. Then select another area you wish to apply different effects to and proceed the same way.

Diana

[Byron Gale]

JD,

Here's another way...

Add a Brightness/Contrast adjustment layer to your image, and adjust it so that the eagle's head looks good, no matter how bad it makes the rest of the image look.

After completing the layer, select its layer mask in the layers palette, and fill with black. This will hide all of the contrast changes you made to the entire image.

Then, still working on the layer mask, use a soft brush and paint white over the head to restore the contrast changes to just that area. If you go too far, paint with black to hide it again.

Repeat, again, with new layers to tailor the adjustments for the body and beak, as needed.

You might also experiment with using a Levels adjustment layer instead of Brightness/Contrast.

HTH,

Byron