Need a bit of help with photoshop

Samson

I know this can be done, as someone actually showed me how to do it once (but I was not really paying attention).

Ok, what I want to do is balance the exposure on a number of slides (crappy snapshots) I have scanned.
The problem basically is that the contrast level between the background (cloudy sky) and foreground (people) is too great, so if I adjust my levels for detail in the sky the foreground is underexposed, and if I bring up the foreground levels I get a washed out sky.

So what do I do ?

I know you can do some sort of seperation (make two layers ?) and adjust each independently, but like I said, I can't remember what to do.

harVee

You need to use a mask on one section of the photo. If you are using photoshop 6, just look up masks in the help.

Samson

'tis only photoshop 5.5 I have.

havok*

Photoshop 5.5 also has masking tools.

why dont u throw them up and see if some ppl here can have a go @ it ?

Monkey

you can burn and dodge in photoshop

Samson

I'll dig one of them out and put it up so that you may indeed have a go.
I would of course like a walkthrough of what you did so that I can do this myself in future (to make up for my lack of exposure skills ).