luminosity masks tutorials

steoc

Hi
I have seen some small youtube clips on luminosity masks.
I would love to learn this as a way to edit my images.
Can anyone recommend some detailed videos or books so as i can get a good understanding.
Thanking you in advance.
Steoc

Balfey1972

steoc wrote: »

Hi
I have seen some small youtube clips on luminosity masks.
I would love to learn this as a way to edit my images.
Can anyone recommend some detailed videos or books so as i can get a good understanding.
Thanking you in advance.
Steoc

Check out Jimmy McIntyre - I found his tutorials on YouTube very good.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=igNlbo5U80g

He has a RayaPro action for PS which is good too. Think it was on special for about $29 when I got it.

http://www.shutterevolve.com/raya-pro-the-ultimate-digital-blending-workflow-panel-for-photoshop/

steoc

Thanks Balfey.
Will check him out.
Hope all is well with you?
Remember a few years back you helped me out with some printer settings, was very grateful.
Thanks again.

Myksyk

I'm not long exploring this aspect of photoshop post-processing but I think Tony Kuyper is the king of luminosity masking! Check out his tutorials and his excellent TKActions v4 photoshop panel. If you shoot landscape in particular, and want much more powerful control over your image processing, you will never regret putting in the effort to understand and use luminosity masking. Sean Bagshaw has done the accompanying video tutorial guides to the TKActions panel itself and a comprehensive video course on understanding and using luminosity masks.

The panel is about $30, the video guide to the panel $29 (there's a free pdf version alternatively) and the video course to using LMs $45.

Mjollnir

Myksyk wrote: »

I'm not long exploring this aspect of photoshop post-processing but I think Tony Kuyper is the king of luminosity masking! Check out his tutorials and his excellent TKActions v4 photoshop panel. If you shoot landscape in particular, and want much more powerful control over your image processing, you will never regret putting in the effort to understand and use luminosity masking. Sean Bagshaw has done the accompanying video tutorial guides to the TKActions panel itself and a comprehensive video course on understanding and using luminosity masks.

The panel is about $30, the video guide to the panel $29 (there's a free pdf version alternatively) and the video course to using LMs $45.

Yup. Tony KILLS as does the guy he works with, Sean Bagshaw.

Silva360

Myksyk wrote: »

I'm not long exploring this aspect of photoshop post-processing but I think Tony Kuyper is the king of luminosity masking! Check out his tutorials and his excellent TKActions v4 photoshop panel. If you shoot landscape in particular, and want much more powerful control over your image processing, you will never regret putting in the effort to understand and use luminosity masking. Sean Bagshaw has done the accompanying video tutorial guides to the TKActions panel itself and a comprehensive video course on understanding and using luminosity masks.

The panel is about $30, the video guide to the panel $29 (there's a free pdf version alternatively) and the video course to using LMs $45.

How intuitive do you find the actions? I've been tempted to get them but worry that they wouldn't offer much more than i can get from layers/masks in Photoshop. I really want some to way to perfectly blend sky/land where the contrast is extreme. Sometimes masks don't cut it but I noted that Bagshaw struggles in couple of places too. Any chance of a before and after shot where you believe that the actions really enhanced your work??? Cheers.

Myksyk

The subject of Luminosity Masking is reasonably easy to understand although implementing it in practice takes practice obviously. I'm only beginning.

Luminosity masking involves creating masks with selections based on a range of luminance levels, meaning the selections are both precise and feathered at the same time and can make selections that are just about impossible by any other method.

For example, if you have a host of small overly-bright areas throughout a sky area and you would like to select all of those and make adjustments to them without affecting other areas, an LM is an effective way to achieve this. Or an example in his extended dynamic range video of working on blending five exposures of a cityscape ... let's say you are masking aspects of a darker exposure over a lighter one ... a luminosity selection can precisely target what you want to mask out ... for example you only want to replace the less-exposed city lights of the darker exposure you can make a selection (say TK's "Lights 3") and it selects very bright areas in the image. you can then easily use a brush to mask the darker exposed lights in to the image without worrying about adjacent (unselected) areas being affected by your brush.

His extended dynamic range stuff is what you seem to be interested in which is about non-HDR HDR! Some of this is easy, some quite difficult. If you have reasonably distinct transitions between sky and land then the blending is not difficult and can be done far better than using hand-brushed masks or more traditional selections using the basic tools as it deals with the transition areas so seamlessly. If you have things like trees sticking into the skyline then doing this to a high level is very involved and would take time, patience and skill. It involves adapting Luminosity masks by creating separate alpha channels and modifying those to emphasise contrast etc then loading these channels as selections to create masks ... like I said, kind of intricate, but not as difficult as it perhaps sounds.

Doing it well in some scenarios does involve other mask-localising techniques like 'masking masks' etc. My initial foray into this area strongly suggests to me that this is a very powerful photoshop technique. It will take quite some time to become proficient but I'm definitely sold and have spent the last few weeks looking and relooking at Bagshaw's videos and using the practice files to go through all the techniques. The panel is great and once you have watched the instructional video is a real addition to your PSCC. Half the panel is actually just shortcuts to frequently used PS processes like blending options, adjustments etc. The other main part of the panel is your LM selection area.

I'm not going to put up a before and after because I think this is something it will take me time to use properly and artistically, but I suppose like a lot of things, doing something really well usually takes effort and time! I see real promise and power in these techniques (particularly for landscape/cityscape photography) and am more than happy to persist.

Myksyk

Here's a couple of images (of the same image!). Let's say you wanted to reduce or increase only certain highlights in this image. Selecting them manually would be impossible. With LMs and Tony Kuypers panel one click (in this case Lights3) selects a certain range which you then view as an overlay by clicking "view" to see if it suits your needs. If not, just try out another selection. The red shows that if I now apply an adjustment (say Levels) it will effect the reddest areas the most, feathering into pink areas far less and not effecting other areas at all. If you wanted to localise the effect (e.g on the water only) you can place the adjustment in a group place a black mask on it and just brush in where you want the effect to take place (called masking the mask).

Similarly, if you were blending images and were using this selection to mask, then using a brush would only mask in or out the selected areas. In that case i do not have to be terribly careful around say the bottom of the cliff edge where it meets the water as the selection does not include any of the cliff so brushing over it will not mask it in or out.

Silva360

Thanks so much for your detailed response, Myksyk. I really wanted a real world review.

You’re right; the possibility to blend seamlessly is what I’m after, even if it’s hard work. I noted on one of Sean’s videos - this one- https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=t3N_gIP3H8Q - that at the end I can still see a kind of halo on the left side of the mountain. Perhaps he wasn’t finished with the tutorial. I also note (and I really hope you don’t mind me saying) a slight halo on the right edge of the cliffs on your photo. This is where I really struggle too, whether on a single image selection or a blend, and it’s something I was hoping luminosity masks would resolve.

In the two examples below, I lost the will to live trying to get a seamless blend between sky and land. Both would be impossible to do on a single image (even with ND Grads), so I needed to bracket. The first I managed by slowly building the blend, but I’m still not happy with it. The second was impossible and you can see the darker sky has brushed onto the land.

I’m guessing the answer might be in ‘masking the masks’.

If now, or in your future learning, you figure out that this is a possibility then I will have no hesitation in buying the actions panel and videos. Please do let me know how it all goes.

Appreciate your time, Cheers.

Myksyk

LOL. Don't mind my image Silva. i didn't use luminosity masking on this, i just grabbed it from my desktop to show what a selection would look like! in fact its a good example of why I needed and liked these tools in the first place.

Bagshaw goes into much more detail in his videos about smoothing transitions. I see in that youtube video he just scoots over the transition for demonstration hence the halo to the left. In the more detailed videos he always brushes down into the land from the sky and then works the transition with a series of passes with both black and white brushes with low opacity, amongst other things.

Btw, I'm not entirely sure you would need to use a luminosity mask for that second image. Could you not just use a more basic selection tool and spend some time refining the edge?

Silva360

Excellent, I think you've just made me make my decision. I'm currently planning on changing my hard drive to an SSD, so once that's done I'm going to go for it.

I've gone back and forth on that photo so many times, I'm sick of it!! Refining the edge either levels the frost too dark or the sky line too bright. Pain in the ass. Maybe I'll give it one more blast tough

Thanks again!