I am sure most of us have stumbled upon countless tutorials online, like Jimmy McIntyre's and Tony Kuyper's tutorials. They are really helpful resources that taught me what I know about Luminosity Masks. For this tutorial, I am using Photoshop CS6, preloaded with Jimmy's Luminosity Masks Actions from his blog. Along the way, I will also be showing you how I recovered the highlights in the Super Trees example that I have used in the previous post.
Before we start, let us understand a bit about actions in Adobe Photoshop. They allow you to perform a set of "actions" (hence the name) automatically. Many people sell their actions, which allows the user to achieve similar, or if not, the same results as the person selling it. We take these actions and apply it to our images, but if you know what is happening behind the scenes, you have the ability to fine tune the final image to the way you want it to be.
Accessing the Actions tab
Luminosity Masks looks at the tone of the image to generate a mask. If you remember from the previous tutorial on Layers and Masking, a mask is something that will reveal the layer when it is white, and conceal the layer when it is dark. Remember that the lighter the layer mask, the more you can see from the layer itself.
The way Luminosity Masks works is that it will first determine the lightness or darkness (tones) of the entire image, which then is saved as a "channel". The channel tab is like a holder for all the masks that you have where, by default, you will have 4 channels, RGB, Red, Green and Blue, each being the tone maps (lightness/darkness) of the different channels. As mentioned above, I am using Jimmy's Luminosity Masks Actions to generate a series of channel, which varies from Highlights, Midtones to Shadows. Each of the channels, when applied to a Layer, finally becomes what we know as Luminosity Masks.
Each time we apply the action, we see that we get 18 different masks. Out of which, 6 are for highlights, 6 for midtones and 6 for shadows. There are 6 different masks because it offers greater flexibility when it comes to choosing the exactly tones that we would like to adjust. Keep this in mind as you choose the correct channel.
Now finally, this is how we apply the masks. Ctrl + Click on the thumbnail of the channel that you want. After that you will see that there is a selection on the image (aka marching ants on the screen). Also, you are able to combine and subtract the selected area that you want or do not want by using Ctrl + Shift + Click and Ctrl +Alt + Click on other masks respectively (expect more here in future posts) You would want to go back to your Layers tab and click on the layer that a Luminosity Mask is to be used on. Then go to the Menu bar and select Layer >> Layer Mask >> Reveal Selection.
-11.jpg)
-10.jpg)
It can be as simple as that, and as complex as you can imagine. Use you creativity to find different ways to use these masks. I will continue to update this blog, till then, do drop by Jimmy McIntyre's and Tony Kuyper's website for more advanced tutorials and tips on using masks.
The way Luminosity Masks works is that it will first determine the lightness or darkness (tones) of the entire image, which then is saved as a "channel". The channel tab is like a holder for all the masks that you have where, by default, you will have 4 channels, RGB, Red, Green and Blue, each being the tone maps (lightness/darkness) of the different channels. As mentioned above, I am using Jimmy's Luminosity Masks Actions to generate a series of channel, which varies from Highlights, Midtones to Shadows. Each of the channels, when applied to a Layer, finally becomes what we know as Luminosity Masks.
Default channel as highlighted in blue, the rest are generated by the Luminosity Mask action.
Each time we apply the action, we see that we get 18 different masks. Out of which, 6 are for highlights, 6 for midtones and 6 for shadows. There are 6 different masks because it offers greater flexibility when it comes to choosing the exactly tones that we would like to adjust. Keep this in mind as you choose the correct channel.
In this case, I want to reveal the blown out highlights
Ctrl + Click on Brights 4, back to Layers tab, choose layer (Highlights layer to reveal highlights) and reveal the Selection
-11.jpg)
-10.jpg)
Before on the left, After on the right, highlights recovered
It can be as simple as that, and as complex as you can imagine. Use you creativity to find different ways to use these masks. I will continue to update this blog, till then, do drop by Jimmy McIntyre's and Tony Kuyper's website for more advanced tutorials and tips on using masks.
