Practical Photography - UK (2019-09)

THEEDIT

108 PRACTICALPHOTOGRAPHY

Based on tonality, Luminosity Masks

are the most accurate selections you

can make, Kingsley Singleton explains.

Improve your landscapes

with Luminosity Masks

M

ANY PHOTOSHOP

tools and techniques can
sound pretty daunting at
first, and that’s never more true than
with what we’re going to look at in
this tutorial – Luminosity Masks.
If you have a basic understanding
of regular Layer Masks, Luminosity
Masks really aren’t that complicated
at all. In fact, they’re surprisingly
simple to make and use, and can have
a dramatic effect on your pictures.
Luminosity Masks are just Layer
Masks based on the tonality of the
image, and with a little know-how,
you can make Photoshop do all
the hardwork.Thismakesthem
in crediblyaccurateandusefulas
they’re basedon tones,so theycan

li mit adjustments to specific tonal

ranges in an image – something that

tools like Levels and Curves can’t do

on their own.

Controlling the tones

To take full advantage of these masks,

we’ll control brightness and colour

in the highlights and shadows of a

landscape image, but it’s important

to realise you can only work with

what’s there. For example, limiting an

adjustment to highlights won’t help if

there’s no detail to bring back there.

In this way, Luminosity Masks are

just another tool in your kit, not a

magicfix,thoughyoucanalsouse

themto combineexposures,whichis

somethingwe’lllookatanothertime.

BEFORE

EXPERTADVICE HOW

LUMINOSITY MASKS WORK

TolearnhowLuminosityMaskswork,youfirstneedto

understandLayerMasksthemselves.Fortunatelythat’ssimple.

LayerMasksworkon a verybasicprincipleof tonality.Where

th ere’spurewhitein themask,thelayeror AdjustmentLayer

it ’s attachedto will be visible.Wherethere’spureblackin the

mask,thelayeror AdjustmentLayerit’sattachedto will be

hi dden.Anythingin betweenthosetwopuretones– ie grey–

you will findthatthelayeror adjustmentis onlypartialhidden.

Now,a LuminosityMaskis justa collectionof thesewhites,

blacksandgreys,so it worksjustlike

a re gularmask,albeitonethat’sbased

onthetonalityof theimageitself,and

thereforehighlyaccurate.

This accuracyimprovesas we make

LuminosityMasksthatarebasedon only

thelightestor darkesttonesin theimage.

Inthesecases,we wouldfindthatwhite

andlightgreycoversonlythevery

brightestor darkesttones,andtherefore,

it’sonlythosewhichwill be affectedby

theadjustmentswe make,so we can

makethemlighter,darker,moreor less

colourful...reallyanysortof adjustment

you’dnormallyapply.

WHITEANDLIGHT

AREASSHOWTHE

ADJUSTMENT

BLACK AND DARK

AREAS HIDE THE

ADJUSTMENT

Above & right Using Luminosity Masks, we’ve

improved the range of tones in this landscape.