Secondaries with the Pros - The Art and Technique of Digital Color Correction - page 256

Multiple Windows and Masks
Festa continues grading the Artbeats shot of the Marines. He grades some
of the warmth out of the original, bringing the shot to a more neutral or
base look. Festa says that even if he brings some of the warmth back into
parts of the image, he wants to start from a more neutral place.
After the initial primary grade, the first thing that he attacks is the
sky, which is bright and relatively featureless in the original. He creates
a garbage mask first to protect the highlights that are lower in the frame
( Figure 6.82 ) .
With the garbage matte in place, Festa qualifies the sky with a lumi-
nance key and blurs the resulting selection ( Figure 6.83 ). He darkens and
saturates the blown-out sky inside the qualification. The softness of the
garbage mask at the horizon creates a gentle gradient from dark at the top
to brighter at the horizon ( Figures 6.84 - 6.87 ).
Fig. 6.82 With a curve, the bottom portion of the image is protected from the correction. The softness
trails off to the horizon, allowing a sky gradient to be created.
Fig. 6.83 A luma qualification of the brightest portion of the sky, blurred.