Freo Graphic

June 2021 FREO GRAPHIC 12 FREO EXTRAS A FEW EXPLANATORY NOTES Before we apply those principles to an image we need to take note of a few basic concepts in image-making and add some explanation to the mentioned principles Determining Figure and Ground Perhaps the highest level of image analysis is to break down an image into 2 simple elements: the figure and the ground. A principle, very well described by author Mark Getlein in his book Living with Art. It comes down to establishing what your most important object is, the figure, and your supporting background, the ground. The ground can be anything that is not your figure. A foreground can be ground, and so can a sky or any other type of background. If you want to know more, I’ve also written about it in this post. Figure isolation and effectively drawing the eye So what to do after you’ve determined your figure and ground? To effectively draw the eye in, the figure and the area of the ground that intersects closely with the figure should have the highest contrast and the brightest light, and the most details. Ideally, everything else should be lower in contrast and darker to effectively draw the eye in. Ideally, which doesn’t mean, always. If you understand this concept then you could play with ‘tension’ in other parts of the image and break this rule. Or perhaps there is more than 1 figure in your image. Let’s stick with the simplest version of just 1 figure and ground. You will find that even though you know exactly what your figure and ground are and had that in mind when taking the shot in the field, the amount and distribution of contrast and highlights and shadows aren’t as they should be to be effective. In that case, this will need to be corrected in post-production. And to do that effectively with the most control you will need to isolate the figure from its ground. And here’s where masking comes in. At the very least you need to at least have a hard mask from the figure and from the ground. Those two masks are called critical masks. From there, internal masks can be derived that are especially needed when you have geometric or manmade objects. And they are almost always a hard mask as they need to isolate a figure from its ground, not a soft or luminosity mask. Luminosity masks isolate light, not a figure unless the distribution of light intensities coincides exactly with the figure and ground, which is usually not the case. Masking and, often completely neglected, good mask analysis is a separate set of Photoshop and in-the-field skills that, if done the right way, requires more than just learning a Photoshop technique or trick. I have explained everything on masking and the correct methods, analysis, and workflow in my 5-hour Advanced Masking video, and is too elaborate to cover here. I have also written a blog post called Photoshop Masks and Selections Guide that you may use as a starting point. APPLYING THE HIGH-LEVEL PRINCIPLES TO IMAGES Now we have described and explained the high-level principles, how can we put this into practice in post-processing, independent of what processing technique or software we use? For that, I have created a sequence of steps presented below. Note that all steps after step 2 are grouped in Figure and Ground steps, and I start with the Ground first, but this is just a personal preference. If you prefer to start with the Figure, you should. Also, note that steps 3 to 10 can be repeated as many times as needed. There’s a special place for step 10 in my personal workflow as that is a step, I would insert frequently after every step after step 2. PRACTICAL STEP SEQUENCE – A GUIDE 1. Determine figure(s) and ground(s) . See my post on how to do this. 2. Isolate Figure fromGround by creating critical masks (hard masks) . You can skip this step but then you have less control over the contrast, the light intensity, and the depth perception in both figure and ground. Processing becomes more difficult and less accurate. At the same time, the Figure can be broken down into separate planes with derived masks. Especially geometric objects in which the separate planes are bordered by edges always need separately derived masks.