The only addition to this technique I'd add is changing the blend mode of the curves layers to " luminosity ". That way you are only affecting the tones and not the colours 😉

Love the relaxed style of the demonstration, and I can confirm this was used on a recent landscape picture, and the picture was transformed. Thank you

This is amazing. I will be watching this video again while I practice. Thanks for sharing this. I will also have a look at the course you mentioned. Cheers.

Wonderful tip, thanks a lot from France. I'm looking forward to practice it ASAP !

Good stuff Colin, thank you! I recorded these steps into an action so I can use it on any photo in just a couple of steps.

Awesome tutorial! Bravo! Thank you so much!

Very clear instruction. Thanks a lot!

Hello Colin, I’m from Germany and enjoyed most of your Cafe tutorials. You are an excellent teacher for me, thanks so much!

Great explanation, thank you!

Hi Colin, Great tutorial on luminosity masks, have a great Holiday and festive season.

Amazing tutorial Colin! Learnt a lot!

Another great tutorial!!! thanks a ton.

Hi from Winter Springs, Florida! Your tutorials are always great. Thanks for your hard work!

Best information on Luminosity Masks I've found. Thanks!

Brilliant and turning it into an action idea suggested by other comments seems a great add-on. Will certainly use it here in UK 🇬🇧

You are the best teacher on KZfaq. From your video I have understood how easy is to use luminosity. There are so many videos on KZfaq about luminosity but they are so confusing. I had problem to understand this possibility, but now it is crystal clear for me. Thank you very much!

Thanks, Colin. I hadn’t used that method before but certainly will. I have your course too. Freezing in Sandhurst, UK

This is pretty darn slick, Colin! I've got to try this on some of my drone aerials.. Cool stuff as always!

I make the masks as per your tutorial but have recorded them as an action…so only one click. I find them very useful for adjusting specific luminance and also for merging two exposures eg one exposed for sky and one for non-sky. Perhaps you could demonstrate both? Thanks. Great video

So helpful, thanks

Thank you so much Colin. Perfect explanation of luminosity mask. I am Cornel from Romania,Transilvania.

Thanks for the great tutorial!

Another helpful [powerful] video! Thanks. Colorado

I use them for a lot more than curves as color and sharpness, etc need to be different in the shadows. Also use them as masks for something in ACR and often I modify the mask to blur it a couple pixels or change the curves on it . Glad to see more info on lunimosity masks.

Thanks , a great technique . 😀

Thanks for the reminder on this masking technique - I have used it before. I'm sure that you know that what you have demonstrated is an 8 bit selection, which is great for most applications - there is a slightly different twist to the key sequence if you want to work in 16 bit selections for a smoother adjustment in extreme tone variation situations - I would have to go back in my reference notes to find it, but I am sure that you know. I always enjoy your videos and appreciate your guidance and teaching style.

I’m from NewZealand and are only learning been using photoshop for a little over a month and loving it and learning something new every day from all the wonderful videos on KZfaq

Hello again (it's been a while, I know) from the UK. Thank you for another great tutorial on another great subject. This one was quite involved, setup wise but like any PS procedure, It is sure to get easier once we are used to doing it. It is certainly a very powerful technique.

Merci beaucoup , je ne connaissais pas cette technique

Many thanks! I've often thought of using luminosity masks but never completely understood the concept. Your tutorial explains it simply and effectively. Now I'm going to experiment. I'm from The Rhondda Valley, South Wales, UK.

I love to see you show how to use the Luminosity Masks in LR/ACR...

Thanks for your concise explanation, Colin. I knew of luminosity masks but could never quite remember how to create them after a couple of weeks. I took the suggestions form dunnymonster and Nick Shepherd on board and created actions that create luminosity masks and set the blend mode to luminosity in one click. such an awesome effect! So much control!

Equally insane is your 'proprietary method' of explanation. Everything made crystal clear!

Very comprehensive, and a new tool for me in the UK.

Thanks for an interesting tutorial. Greetings from Perth Western Australia.

Thanks for sharing an interesting video. Greetings from Perth Western Australia.

I have heard about the luminosty mask but have not had time to investigate them. This is video is clear and concise. Thank you Colorado USA

Very useful Thankyou

Great video. I use Lumenzia which makes the luminosity selections much easier, more specific and quicker.

Awesome info!

You have excelled with this one Colin, many thanks from Derek of Hermanus in the Western Cape, South Africa. I'm going to make myself a pdf doc of this from the transcript if I may.

Great tutorial. I always wondered how some of the luminosity plugins were made.

Complex matter explained nicely ❤.

Fantastic learned about luminosity mask 2 days ago and it makes photo editing so much easier! Glad i switched from Lightroom to Photoshop it has ton of advantages, and workflow is not much different from Lightroom i simply learn how to repeat what i already leaned in Lightroom using Photoshop tools and panels.

Thank you, Colin. I'm a fine art photographer from the Philadelphia, PA area. I've been using luminosity masks for a long time, but I have a slightly different approach. I do to Select in the Menu Bar. Then, open the drop down window and select individually the shadows, highlights and midtones. I save the selections as channels. Then, I open the individual selections, open a curves adjustment layer and adjust the clipping for each layer. Then, I open the individual selections once again, but this time I adjust the contrast for each layer using a Channel Mixer adjustment layer.

Nice tutorial! Gretings from Munich, Bavaria, Germany

Hi Colin, really good video. Best explanation I've seen. I'm off to create an action for this now. I also need to learn how to blend 2 images using this technique . . . I'll have a look on your channel to see if you have one. Many thanks. 🙂👍

Hi from Moscow! Your tutorials are always great. Thanks for your hard work!

I am hailing from Central Oregon in the states. I haven't used luminosity masks in the past, but you can bet I will now. Thank you so much for the awesome demonstration.

Hi Colin, that‘ s Klaus from 🇩🇪. I already bought your PS course and I just started with it. So I look forward to find this described session. Enjoy your holiday👋👋😎😉🍹🍹

Nice video!

Well explained

Hi Collins, Jose from Puerto Rico. I've been using luminosity masks for quite some time. There are many luminosity mask panels out there right now that can make this process very easy. 2 of my favorites is the TK8 luminosity panel by Tony Kuyper and Lumienza from Greg Benz. Those 2 panels are exceptional.

I like your video, I use to use Lrc to make this adjust, but not with this precision. Thank you for sharing. I’m from São Paulo, Brazil.

Hello Colin, It is really effective technique that I do not know. Thank you. I'm from Montréal, Québec (Canada).

Hey! Colin...From Kenosha Wisconsin. Powerful presentation! Thank you

Hello. You are an excellent teacher, and I enjoyed this video very much! I have used Luminosity masks for years. I'm curious why you don't just select these three brightness sets from the Select Color Range command and then store them as channels. Once you have Photoshop's analysis of the three macro ranges, you are then free to refine them as you did by clicking on those channels and further refining what they contain. Surely that is a much easier way to arrive at the set of mid-tones? It is also more precise since it is not clear exactly what you are subtracting from the final selection of the whole image. Thanks for your work!

very helpful

Excellent!, from Los Angeles!

Hi I never had used luminosity masks before. Sure now I will be practicing them. Thanks for sharing Mario from the island of Malta.

Thanks Colin, Great tutorial... Luis - Lisboa

Thank's from Houston. Played with luminosity masks before (a little). I believe you can create an Action in PS to quickly create those masks.

Great Tutorial. Usually I control my Luminosity Masks with Blend sliders. Greetings form Portugal.

thx (from Barcelona)

Thank you Colin, this was great. I finally have a faster computer and trashed my CS6 and now I have Photoshop 2022. I have a lot to learn. See you tomorrow at LFL.

Hi Colin. Thanks for this. When I create the channels, they turn red. Is there a way of stopping this?

Great video! What is the next step to saving the image. Do I just click File>SAVE or do I do something else to save the layers. I assume I'll be able to go back and make adjustments as long as I don't flatten the image ??

Thank you a lot for such a nice trick is brought to light for me. ❤from Dhaka, Bangladesh 🇧🇩

Great video…Really helpful. Thanks🥰 I’m from 🇮🇳 India

I am from India. I have been learning PS since v.2. But I am following you since 4 years. Thanks.

To be more constructive than in my previous post. I suggest to Adobe a 1-click command to create full set of luminosity masks and corresponding layers. Could default to perhaps 7 levels from dead blacks to specular highlights. The user would then be presented with an interactive histogram box in which the number of levels/layers could be changed along with the dividing points between them. Blending would default to luminosity. Meantime I'll take TK8. Off Topic: I'm also waiting for Adobe to port "Scopes" from Premiere Pro to Photoshop. Amazingly handy information from scopes. Generally seems to me that Adobe has been only tinkering with color and luminosity controls for a couple of decades. For another take on what can be done, explore the Color Controls in the DaVinci Resolve (free) video editing program. Wow! Some of that kind of functionality added to (not replacing) Photoshop controls would be a WOW for Adobe. Ok, now I've got the Adobe hate off my chest, with perhaps something constructive. Thanks Colin for the excellent videos.

Thanks for the video. I don't understand using luminosity Masks for curves. Can't you already targets the brights, darks or mids by only adjusting that section of the curve?

Thank you Colin! Yes, I use luminosity mask. I am from Bulgaria.

Very easy to follow luminosity mask editing tutorial. I have used this tutorial numerous times for editing purposed. If I could ask one question about the steps in the video that I am not sure about. This could be one of those circumstances where there are different ways to achieve the same results. This is in regards to when you get the the part on making and selecting the dark layers. In the first step in your video you SELECT ALL (CTR + SHIFT + I) to invert the selection. Do you need to include the shift key. When I am on an layer and want to invert it I use (CTR + I) however in this case I do not get the same results as when I include the shift key. I usually just default to using your method which does work well. Again thanks for all the videos you post it has help me tremendously in my photo editing process.

Thank you after watching this video I now get luminosity masks so thank you again, but the problem I have, I follow the video but when I get to add a curves layer the photo has a red cast over it making impossible to make adjustments to the image.

Yuksel from Istanbul Turkey. Thanks for your valuable guidance on PS.

Great video. I ran through the whole process and recorded it as an action. Now whenever I import an image I just hit the action and all masks are automatically made in about 3 seconds. Brilliant. Thanks.

Ben from Beverly Hills, California Luminosity masking is as powerful as you indicate. Tony Kuyper has a plug-in that fully automates the creation and refinement of luminosity masks. The Kuyper plug-in places all of the luminosity masking and photoshop commands a photographer is likely to need in a convenient panel. Worth the nominal cost.

Can the camera raw filter do the same thing?

Colin Can you not achieve the same results with Blend if sliders. I know they may be more difficult to understand but can they not achieve the same results?

Greetings from Belgium

Superb ! well m from INDIA 🇮🇳

Hi Colin new boy here from the uk🇬🇧

How to create Midtone 2 luminosity mask ( additional luminosity mask for Midtones ) ?

Does the midtone selection process here give the same results as the "Color Range" midtone selection? Excellent presentation, thanks.

When you went to the midtones, you didn't click on the RGB, is this what you do with the midtones because on the lights and darks you always clicked on the RGB before you selected the curves.

NorCal: Oakland. I'll probably have to watch this a couple more times to wrap my head around the technique.

I keep running into a red mask when I move on to the Layers . Doesn't seem to be a quick mask which i have activated or can de select. Anyone else come across this ?

Hello there, I'm an Italian photographer, this is a really great video

Love this tutorial. I've left the studio and am doing more fun projects where this will come in very handy.

The setup would take a few seconds to do with a good AppleScript or JavaScript on Windows. You could even have the script ask how many levels of light and dark you want. One button push and in seconds you’re ready.

I use luminosity masks all the time, but never just like this, with the intersections and all. Looks like a technique I can use. I"m in Arizona, not far away... Edit: I wonder if one should create an action to create all those alpha channels...?

Never use luminosity mask / channel.... Now we know it is very powerful tools !

I wonder if it Is possible to use an action to create all these channels at once ?

No doubt, this provides a high level of control. It's too bad Adobe doesn't provide an action that simply creates everything as it does with sky replacement. Now that would be a powerful, time saving value-add ! Is this feature out there with all the 3rd market PS panels ?? Thanks Colin.

I’m from Cameroon based out of Rome

I think it might be easier to just start each video stipulating "cmmd = ctrl, option = alt"

👍

Viveza

Australia