A new Photoshop tutorial--sharing a secret

As most of you who see my posts on ESS know, I'm quite enthusiastic about using the digital darkroom to create a highly personal vision of the scenes I shoot. For several months, I've been working on a tutorial to explain one of my favorite Photoshop techniques that I use on nearly every image I post on NPN--Luminosity Masks. It turned out to be a lot more work than I expected, but also became a great learning experience. I finished posting it on my website this afternoon. The link below will take you there.

Since this is my first time doing something like this, critical feedback would be helpful. If the links and the download don't work or there are sections you don't understand, please let me know and I'll try to make corrections . . . as time permits.

I will tell you up front that this turned out a little more technical than I expected. I'm not sure if Luminosity Masks are new to most folks or not. They're a very powerful tool within Photoshop, but they're not at all obvious or straightforward. The tutorial takes you through the steps to generate them and gives examples of how I've used them in my images. In addition, there is a downloadable set of actions that make it very easy to generate the masks on your computer if you're running Photoshop.

The tutorial is seven pages long, but there are lots of illustrations to make things clear. Please take a look if you have time and let me know what you think.

Luminosity Masks Tutorial

I will certainly check it out. You rock! (That's a joke. I'm way too old to say that with a straight face.)

Pete D.

I've had the pleasure of reading it before and could barely keep the secret for much longer - it's a superb article with the valuable bonus of a very useful set of actions. Thanks Tony!

Guy

Thanks, Tony. That is a very well done tutorial. I'm looking forward to exploring your actions.

Tony,

Very, very well done! Superb, in fact! I'll have to read throught it a couple of times to get it dialed, then I'll go to your site and get a piece of the action(s).

Thnaks for sharing this with all of us!

-PB

Tony,

Thank you for sharing a great trick and for downloads! I went through your article and it's very well written. Explanations are as clear as they can be.

Cheers,
Marko

Tony,
I've also had a pleasure of reading and using this 'trick' beforehand. Great article TK. Thanks for being so generous.

You rock! (That's a joke. I'm way too old to say that with a straight face.) >>>>

Tony, great stuff! I think I need to place a link to this somewhere on NPN.

Simply one of the best Photoshop related tutorials I've read anywhere. Well done, and thanks.

Thanks Tony - after seeing your consistently superior images I can't wait to read it. Yet another reason I enjoy being a member of NPN.

An expertly done tutorial, Tony.

One thing that is important to note (especially since your tutorial is aimed at luminosity): any portion of an image altered by a curve (or level) will also experience an increase (or decrease) in color saturation and contrast unless the blending mode of that masked layer is changed to LUMINOSITY. Some may prefer the contrast and color boost gained via the NORMAL blending mode, but in the interest of the term luminosity masks, I think this is an important thing to point out.

Excellent tutorial, great accompanying illustrations.

Hi Tony, I just stumbled across this on your website the other day and cant wait to go back and read it in detail. Thanks for taking the time to write up a detailed workflow and for sharing new techniques with the rest of us.

Thank you Tony. It's so kind of you to share this, and I can't wait to try it. Very well done technical writing, too!

Would it be right to call these "masks based on luminosity?" I read the tutorial to the point that I created a 'lights' mask for one of my photographs and played around with it. I think I get the idea. I was just starting to feel empowered by my superhuman ability to use Gaussian blur on adjustment layers and I see there is a better way! Thanks again.

Pete D.

Tony, the article is well written, and in terms that I can easily understand, even with my limited Photoshop ability. It is very thoughtful of you to take the time to share this technique. I'm looking forward to giving it a test run this week.

Thanks

Robert

Whoa!!!! This is powerful stuff! Now I just have to learn to use it without blowing myself up.

Many thanks.

Michael: You're right, though for me there seems to be a bit of a disconnect between theory and practice. Visually, I definitely see the saturation boost when I'm doing an "S" curve in the Curves dialog box, especially when I do an "S" curve without a luminosity mask in place on the adjusment layer. However, many of my adjustments using luminosity masks aren't "S" curves, they're simply bending the curve either up or down. In these cases, the saturation change is not obvious on my monitor, so I don't bother changing the blending mode to "Luminosity", leaving it as "Normal" and preferring to accept my visual impression of the scene on my screen and continuing to move forward with my changes. Additionally, once you have a luminosity mask in place, it isolates the adjustment to specific tones, and depending which mask you're using, the effect on saturation change on the overall image isn't that great, and sometimes very beneficial. It can be significantly different than when no mask is used. There is no question, however, that saturation can become an issue when you're working on an image, and changing the blending mode to "Luminosity" in those situations where saturation is obviously skewed can be helpful.

For anyone who is interested, this is also possible in Photoshop Elements (which I use) but with a couple of caveats.

1) In order to do the initial selection based on greater than 50% luminosity, I used a free "effect" available from http://www.hiddenelements.com. (Note that I have nothing to do with that site - I just searched for a way to select highlights or shadows and that came up. You have to supply an email address to get the Effects.)

2) Since Elements doesn't have Curves, you need to likely use a "Levels" adjustment layer - and of course this comes along with all the drawbacks of Levels compared to Curves.

I'm sure there are other ways to accomplish the selection and masking in a similar way, but this behaves in Elements very much the same way Tony described in CS.

Thanks Tony!!

David--I have no experience with PS Elements and appreciate your suggested work-around to make the technique work in that program. Are there "masks" on adjustment layers in PS Elements? If so, you might also be able to Copy and Paste the image into the mask, and that will give you a "Lights" mask also. This copy/paste method works in PS, but it's a more round-about way to create the "Lights" mask than the methods I describe in the article.

To clarify, Tony, everything seems to work just fine (as you described it) after the initial selection. Since there is no "Channels" palette in Elements, this is the part that I used the "Effect" for.

Once the initial selection is made (or any selection), any adjustment layer that you choose comes up with a mask, just as it does in the full version. Then you can do the same "Shift+Alt+Cntl+click" to re-apply the selection and intersect the mask with itself however many times you want. The just create a new adjustment layer each time you have selected what you want to be in the mask. So you wind up with several Levels adjustment layers, each with a mask, just as you do in the full version.

If anyone has any Elements questions, feel free to email me (or if you know an easier way to do the initial selection).

That was very gracious of you. Thank you.

Many thanks.

T

Tony, YOU DA MAN!

Tony, thanks for posting this. I've played with several photos using the technique and it's great. Something I will use routinely from here on out.

I can't wait to try this out. Thanks.

- Dan.

Tony-
I have admired your wonderful work for some time now. The beautiful glow which your images possess is incredible. Rod has already said that this is one of the best Photoshop related tutorials that he has read anywhere and I wholeheartedly agree! It was beyond gracious to share your secret with us. I tried my first image last night and was able to substantially improve it. I'm sure I've only scratched the surface of its capabilities and look forward to your follow up article. I assume that it will be just as helpful for monochrome as color. I'm sure you must have considered submitting it to a print magazine or having it as a chapter in a future book. Anyway, it's a great technique, clearly explained, and expertly written. Thanks again for sharing your knowledge and techniques!

Thanks very much Tony. Already have improved an image beyond what I could before using these. Am looking forward to using them more and likely reworking some images.

Fantastic. Thank you for posting this.
BTW I was just in Coyote Buttes this past week and as i walked around I kept thinking "Tony Kuyper".

I had to read this a few times and work with it, I'm finding the midtone mask a great way to enhance the midtone contrast, This is really good stuff Tony.