Contrast Masking

A contrast mask will lighten dark areas and darken light areas.
It will extend the exposure range of your photograph.
Finding this technique increased my enjoyment of digital photography,
by improving my pictures.

Other web sites explain contrast masking very well,
but seeing the results often requires scrolling up and down the page.
I have a demonstration set up in an attempt to make the effect of a
contrast mask obvious and easy to see.

After looking at my demo, check out information on contrast masking
at the sites listed here.

Luminous Landscape
EarthBound Light
Photoshop Tutorials Blog

This demo works best when the thumbnails are at the top of your
browser's window. The pop up images have captions.

This will align the thumbnails to the top of your browser window.
Move your cursor over the thumbnails to see the larger pictures.

Demo

Hovering over the first thumbnail reveals the image after a "levels"
adjustment layer. This layer can lighten or darken the image.
The woods to the left are still unnaturally dark. With a contrast mask the
dark areas can be further lightened with no ill effects on the light sky.
Even better, the sky will become just a little bit darker.

Hovering over the second thumbnail shows the effect of the contrast mask.
The contrast mask increases exposure range.