Jeff's Overlay Technique in Lightroom Video Options

[Samotano]

In the Lightroom video, in the last few minutes of the Develop section, Jeff quickly illustrates a technique for enhancing a shot to add more punch and prep it for print. It involves setting a duplicate bavkground layer in color overlay blending mode and tweak the blend if sliders. He also does a high pass filter. I have played around with this approach. Can someone shed some light on what exactly is happening? Where can I find more info on these two tecniques?

[adion]

I have not seen the lightroom tutorial but does he call it a kind of midtone contrast?

Because i was at the epson print academy in 2006 and Marc Holbert showed us this technique in Photoshop. Maybe Jeff migrated it to lightroom.

[Samotano]

I have not seen the lightroom tutorial but does he call it a kind of midtone contrast?

Because i was at the epson print academy in 2006 and Marc Holbert showed us this technique in Photoshop. Maybe Jeff migrated it to lightroom.

actually, he did in PS. Yes, he does mention midtone contrast and Mark Holbert.

[adion]

here is how to do it but for the definition, i guess the simple way to explain it is to try it. You will see that the midtones really punch up with this technique.

Here's how you do it (taken from the PDF Marc Wrote for the Epson print academy)

1. Highlight your top layer in your Layers Palette then:

2. Holding down your Opt Key (Mac) / Alt Key (PC), select Merge Visible from the fly-down menu on the right
side of your Layers Palette. Be sure to keep the Opt / Alt depressed until you see the blank layer update. You should now
have an additional layer at the top of your layer stack. It represents how the image would appear if you had flattened your
layers. Rename this layer “Midtone Contrast”

3. Next double-click on the Midtone Contrast layer icon to bring up the Layer Style Palette. Change the Blend Mode to
Overlay and lower the Blend Mode Opacity to 20%. Now move the left “This Layer” slider to 70. Now Split away the left
side of that slider by holding down the Opt / Alt key and move it to 50. Repeat the same process on the right “This Layer”
slider, moving the sliders to 185 and 205 respectively. Then select “OK”.

4. Now select Filter->Other->High Pass. In the High Pass Palette set the radius to 50 and select “OK”. Now select Image-
>Adjustments->Desaturate. The Midtone Contrast layer is now complete. At 20% opacity it should be very subtle, but
noticable. The effect can be decreased or increased by raising or lowering the Midtone Contrast Layer opacity. I’ve found
that the proper setting can usually be found between 20% and 40% opacity. Above 40% one risks creating “halo” artifacts
that are visually distracting.


Here you go!

[Samotano]

here is how to do it but for the definition, i guess the simple way to explain it is to try it. You will see that the midtones really punch up with this technique.

Here's how you do it (taken from the PDF Marc Wrote for the Epson print academy)

1. Highlight your top layer in your Layers Palette then:

2. Holding down your Opt Key (Mac) / Alt Key (PC), select Merge Visible from the fly-down menu on the right
side of your Layers Palette. Be sure to keep the Opt / Alt depressed until you see the blank layer update. You should now
have an additional layer at the top of your layer stack. It represents how the image would appear if you had flattened your
layers. Rename this layer “Midtone Contrast”

3. Next double-click on the Midtone Contrast layer icon to bring up the Layer Style Palette. Change the Blend Mode to
Overlay and lower the Blend Mode Opacity to 20%. Now move the left “This Layer” slider to 70. Now Split away the left
side of that slider by holding down the Opt / Alt key and move it to 50. Repeat the same process on the right “This Layer”
slider, moving the sliders to 185 and 205 respectively. Then select “OK”.

4. Now select Filter->Other->High Pass. In the High Pass Palette set the radius to 50 and select “OK”. Now select Image-
>Adjustments->Desaturate. The Midtone Contrast layer is now complete. At 20% opacity it should be very subtle, but
noticable. The effect can be decreased or increased by raising or lowering the Midtone Contrast Layer opacity. I’ve found
that the proper setting can usually be found between 20% and 40% opacity. Above 40% one risks creating “halo” artifacts
that are visually distracting.
Here you go!

Thanks a lot! That certainly helps. Now is this mostly geared towards prepping the image for printing? I am very familiar with local contrast enhancement done by unsharp mask with high radius and low amount, is this somewhat analogous or are there added benefit/differences to this approach?
Thanks again