I am using Photoshop 7 and/or PSP10, can I somehow fake that Photoshop CS4 thing of Highlight/Shadow using layer modes or something? I have not figured out how. I want that pseudo HDR look where there is extended detail in the shadow and highlight... sort of like the whole image was brought toward the middle tone without loosing pure blacks or whites. Thank you.

Have you tried using a curves layer

Can you provide an example of what you're looking for?

According to Chris Cox, one of the Adobe Photoshop developers, when asked about making Shadows and Highlights an adjustment layer the problem is that the effect looks beyond the immediate pixel at the neighbours, so most normal adjustment layers and tonal filters won't do the same thing. That said, ejn is right - the closest you could get would be to use a curves filter/adjustment, perhaps filtered by loading the image's luminosity as a mask (ctrl(Win)/cmd(Mac)-click the RGB channel to make as election based on brightness).

Above is an example of the Highlight/Shadow from the internet. There are no freebie filters you know of to replicate this? Or channel operations... I'll keep trying. Maybe a desaturated negative as overlay? I have been using levels rather than curves. I'll try curves and I'll try this ctrl-click, Thank you,

This may be a better option.

Create a new layer and set the mode to overlay.

Set the foreground colour to white. get the brush tool and select a soft edge brush and set the opacity to about 10. The opacity setting you  will need to play with to get the result you want.

Brush over the dark area and it will lighten but because you are in the Overlay mode the detail will still show through, your brining out the detail rather than painting over it.

To darken an area swap the foreground colour to black.

To make things more interesting you can use colors instead of black and white.

For instance in the image you have shown you could choose a yellowish colour to lighten to straw colour and add a bit of warmth. You could select a greenish colour and bring up the grass.What you can do with an image with this method is endless. It takes a bit of practice to get the opacity right but believe me once you get going it is great fun.

Check out the image at this link

 

http://www.renderosity.com/mod/gallery/index.php?image_id=1980874&user_id=411542&member&np

 

This was a crap shot because of the weather but look at what I did with shadows and highlights using the overlay and brush method.

If you need more help you can site mail me

 

Eddie

Thank you! That is exactly what I wanted... I was thinking wrong in wanting to do it with duplicate layers instead of hand painting as you describe. That looks perfect! Just what I was after!!!