Luminosity Masking Alternative
these are notes from a YouTube video by Unmesh Linda
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=t3zSUK7KK7c
A Luminosity Mask is a mask based on brightness
so you can tell photoshop that anything darker than 50% grey should be hidden (or black in the mask) by the mask.
(or whatever brightness you determine)
The Channels selection way to make Luminosity Masks
the way most people teach how to make luminosity mask would be to go in channels, command + click the RGB channel and it selects everything brighter than 50% grey, then click mask icon
then you can create any adjustment layer with that selection active and PS creates a mask, so the adjustment would only affect the selected pixels (brighter than 50% grey)
to select anything brighter than 75% grey - command + shift + option and click the RGB channel
to select only the darkest areas, select either 50% or 75% grey as above, then invert mask by shift +
command + I
to create luminosity masks, you would go in channels and command + click to make 50% brightness mask, then command + shift + option + click to make 75% brightness mask, then create another 50%, deselect it and invert it (command I), or make a copy of the 50% mask and invert, do the same for 75%
Now you can create an adjustment based on brightness by selecting on of those masks in the channels panel, hold command + click to make a selection and in layers panel create an adjustment layer.
The Color Range Selection Way to make Luminosity Masks
The way Unmesh does luminosity masks, make an adjustment layer (ex. curves), with the mask selected, go to select - color range. Under select drop down choose highlights. If under selection preview you choose greyscale, it will show what is selected in white, and what is not selected in black. Turn the fuzziness all the way down, and use range to select the area you want and then adjust fuzziness to control your selection even more.
Can also do this for shadows, and midtones.
If there are areas that you change, such as the bottom of pic, you can paint black on the mask.
If you are going to make a lot of adjustments and don't want a part of pic selected, you can create group and put the mask on the whole group.
Also, if you want to make more than one adjustment to a particular area, like shadows, you can
copy the same mask to another adjustment layer by holding down option and dragging the mask.
You can add highlights by making a curves adjustment layer, brightening the whole image, adding a black layer mask and painting in a few areas with large, soft white brush where you want a few highlights. You can then double click on the layer and use blend if sliders on the underlying layer to make sure the the darkest areas of the underlying layer aren't affected, just the bright areas.
You can also add color to an area (ex highlights) by creating a solid color adjustment layer, option + drag your highlights layer mask to this layer and changing blend mode to multiply.
As a finishing touch, you can add your choice of color lookup layer.
Before
After
* the limitations to this method are that once you make your selection using color range and add your adjustment layer, you can't go back in and adjust the sliders.
these are notes from the 2nd luminosity video by Unmesh
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nOMdOhDsZM0
Blend If Method of creating Luminosity Masks
Make and adjustment layer and double click to the right of the layer to bring up the layer styles dialogue box. In the blend if panel move the sliders on the underlying layer bar.
If you slide the left slider to the right, you are hiding the adjustment from the shadow area (hiding it from and pixels that are darker than the point your slider is at) so you are affecting just the highlights. You can adjust the fuzziness of your selection like you would in select color range by holding options and clicking on the slider and splitting it and adjusting more.
You can affect just the shadow areas by dragging the right slider to the left. And affect the midtones by sliding both sliders in.
You can paint on the mask to hide certain areas you don't want affected.
*But the limitation to this type of mask, is that if you do blend it and smooth it out, and there are areas not selected that you want to include, you can't add to the mask and include them.
In other words, you CAN paint with black to hide areas, but you CANT paint with white to add areas.
In this example, after you smooth it out, there is a part of the sky not selected in the upper right corner, but you can't paint on the mask with white to add to it because there is no selection in the mask.
also, since there isn't a mask, you can't drag it to another adjustment layer like you can in color range method.
my before and after using this method
Before
After
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=t3zSUK7KK7c
A Luminosity Mask is a mask based on brightness
so you can tell photoshop that anything darker than 50% grey should be hidden (or black in the mask) by the mask.
(or whatever brightness you determine)
The Channels selection way to make Luminosity Masks
the way most people teach how to make luminosity mask would be to go in channels, command + click the RGB channel and it selects everything brighter than 50% grey, then click mask icon
then you can create any adjustment layer with that selection active and PS creates a mask, so the adjustment would only affect the selected pixels (brighter than 50% grey)
to select anything brighter than 75% grey - command + shift + option and click the RGB channel
to select only the darkest areas, select either 50% or 75% grey as above, then invert mask by shift +
command + I
to create luminosity masks, you would go in channels and command + click to make 50% brightness mask, then command + shift + option + click to make 75% brightness mask, then create another 50%, deselect it and invert it (command I), or make a copy of the 50% mask and invert, do the same for 75%
Now you can create an adjustment based on brightness by selecting on of those masks in the channels panel, hold command + click to make a selection and in layers panel create an adjustment layer.
The Color Range Selection Way to make Luminosity Masks
The way Unmesh does luminosity masks, make an adjustment layer (ex. curves), with the mask selected, go to select - color range. Under select drop down choose highlights. If under selection preview you choose greyscale, it will show what is selected in white, and what is not selected in black. Turn the fuzziness all the way down, and use range to select the area you want and then adjust fuzziness to control your selection even more.
Can also do this for shadows, and midtones.
If there are areas that you change, such as the bottom of pic, you can paint black on the mask.
If you are going to make a lot of adjustments and don't want a part of pic selected, you can create group and put the mask on the whole group.
Also, if you want to make more than one adjustment to a particular area, like shadows, you can
copy the same mask to another adjustment layer by holding down option and dragging the mask.
You can add highlights by making a curves adjustment layer, brightening the whole image, adding a black layer mask and painting in a few areas with large, soft white brush where you want a few highlights. You can then double click on the layer and use blend if sliders on the underlying layer to make sure the the darkest areas of the underlying layer aren't affected, just the bright areas.
You can also add color to an area (ex highlights) by creating a solid color adjustment layer, option + drag your highlights layer mask to this layer and changing blend mode to multiply.
As a finishing touch, you can add your choice of color lookup layer.
Before
After
* the limitations to this method are that once you make your selection using color range and add your adjustment layer, you can't go back in and adjust the sliders.
these are notes from the 2nd luminosity video by Unmesh
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nOMdOhDsZM0
Blend If Method of creating Luminosity Masks
Make and adjustment layer and double click to the right of the layer to bring up the layer styles dialogue box. In the blend if panel move the sliders on the underlying layer bar.
If you slide the left slider to the right, you are hiding the adjustment from the shadow area (hiding it from and pixels that are darker than the point your slider is at) so you are affecting just the highlights. You can adjust the fuzziness of your selection like you would in select color range by holding options and clicking on the slider and splitting it and adjusting more.
You can affect just the shadow areas by dragging the right slider to the left. And affect the midtones by sliding both sliders in.
You can paint on the mask to hide certain areas you don't want affected.
*But the limitation to this type of mask, is that if you do blend it and smooth it out, and there are areas not selected that you want to include, you can't add to the mask and include them.
In other words, you CAN paint with black to hide areas, but you CANT paint with white to add areas.
In this example, after you smooth it out, there is a part of the sky not selected in the upper right corner, but you can't paint on the mask with white to add to it because there is no selection in the mask.
also, since there isn't a mask, you can't drag it to another adjustment layer like you can in color range method.
my before and after using this method
Before
After
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