just gave this a try, and man what a difference. Increasing the exposure just a third of a stop on the subject is so much cleaner than a vignette! Thanks for the tip!

Been doing this for a long time with my wildlife photos, good to know I'm on the right track. Sometimes adding localized contrast by bringing up the whites in dark areas really makes the subject pop too.

This video was really helpful. I have been using a similar technique to accomplish the same thing in Lightroom. Your version is much more flexible and produced better results. I am now going back to re-process some older images using the technique you described. Thanks -

Great, Matt! I always love your stuff!

Love it. Thank you for all you do!

Very helpful video; easy to follow and provided me with knowledge to explore Photoshop further. Thank you!

Brilliant Matt, very Helpful and informative. Many thanks for sharing.

Great tip, Matt! Thanks!

Thank you Matt. Great tutorial and I always learn so much.

Really outstanding tutorial!

Thanks Matt!

Matt, as I watched your video, I worked along with you on one of my own wildlife photos. Great technique! Very helpful! You are easily one of the best teachers of photography on youtube or anywhere else. Thanks for all your assistance, your strategies, and your "editing tricks." --Mitch

This was awesome Matt! Thanks happy Friday.

Excellent. I've wondered how to do this, in a less tedious way. It will also force me to step away from Lightroom and dip my toe into Photoshop. Thanks!

Thanks...some things I sort of knew, but now I think I know how to do them more efficiently. :)

great tutorial! Thanks for that !

Very useful, THANK YOU

Good tips thanks for posting the video. What you did definitely made for a nice image. For what it is worth, I liked the image best when the bird was dark and the background lighter. The contrast of the dark bird with the light background drew my eye to the bird more than when the background was darker.

great tips thanks for sharing

Very nice. Simple and effective.

Two new tips today. #1 is your trick. #2 is the Alt/eyeball to compare before and after. I also second Marc's comment. Thanks

Thanks. Now I understand the power of Invert!

I use this procedure, but for whatever reason never thought of using curves instead of brightness. Good tips as always. On side note, the whole picture looked too dark for my tastes, at least on my monitor. Of course, that moight best reflect the light conditions when you took the shot. Anyway, thanks for the vid.

Does this pull in a jpg? Does this limit the amount of brightening or darkening vs a raw?

Matt, Thank you so much! What a great tutorial! One question. At 6:20 of the video, as you change to the Brush tool, I noticed that the brush on the screen looks similar to a Lightroom brush with a feather applied. Can you please tell me how to apply that type of feather to the brush in photoshop?

Nice video, Like 348 and Greetings from Italy :)

nice and easy :-) surprised how you could refine mask between feathers so easily with a brush 56% flow. I would have launched refine edge,...

Matt, just out of curiosity, I have an image where only half of the image needs adjustment. How do I adjust the "subject selection" or modify it?

And On1 Users?

Hey Matt, in my experience you must include printed paper to your course, in real life when facing an issue we can't go look for the relevant course video.

That wasn't a crop, that was an amputation 🤣🤣 How big was that photo, that allows a crop like that and still keep a quality, which camera you use? 😲 Subscribed btw, fantastic video, and the photo....🤩🤩🤩🤩🤩

Matt, the problem with your technique is that you have to re-create the inverse mask if you change the subject mask. Why not apply a curves adjustment layer to the background? That way, you can adjust the subject mask and not have to deal with the inverse mask.