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Tony Kuyper

Luminosity Masks

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Luminosity Masks

Tony Kuyper 2006

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Image created using luminosity masks, rollover=no masks

Introduction
NOTE: I recently developed a custom actions panel that makes creating and experimenting with luminosity masks, as well as the other techniques on this website, much
easier. Please visit this page for more information about the custom Photoshop panel and how it works.
Luminosity masks are the cornerstone of tone-based image adjustments. These masks provide a convenient way to select specific tones in an image which can then be
altered as the user sees fit. They have the ability to overcome shortcomings in the tonal values that were captured by the camera or film and to correct tones that shifted
during image manipulation. Beyond simplifying these standard adjustments, however, luminosity masks also encourage a very individual approach to interpreting light.
Luminosity masks make the captured light incredibly flexible and thereby provide the artist photographer unique opportunities to use Photoshop to explore their personal
vision through photography.
I use luminosity masks in every image I make, usually multiple times. Over the years Ive created several different versions of the masks that have made them more useful.
While luminosity masks are created in Photoshop, they aren't available from the drop-down menus and can't be created with tools in Photoshop's Tools palette. This
tutorial will describe the masks, how to make them using Photoshop, and the basic way to use them. The two primary masks, "Lights" and "Darks", are relatively easy to
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create. From there, however, it becomes more complex as the various selections are intersected and subtracted. All the steps will be explained in the tutorial. While its
important to understand the basics of how to create luminosity masks and the tones they select, mask creation can be a bit cumbersome. So, to efficiently use the masks
in a Photoshop workflow, its usually best to create a set of Photoshop actions to do all the key strokes. Actions greatly simplify the process of generating the masks; a
couple of clicks and you're done. I make my personal set of actions to create the luminosity masks available on the last page of the tutorial if youd like to use them.
However, I would urge you to take the time to gain a good understanding of the process by which the masks are created and to actually practice making them. It will be
useful when reading the other tutorials on this website and will allow you to develop a very personal approach to employing the masks, which, in the end, will make your
images more distinctive.
Several of the other tutorials on this website are an extension of the concept of tone-based adjustments that the luminosity masks make possible. While this first tutorial
will provide the basic concepts, there is a wide range of possibilities beyond what it can cover. The other tutorials will look at additional ways that the masks can be used
as well as exploring other techniques for tonal adjustments. Please visit them when you have time. The "tutorials" link in the header of each page will take you to the
tutorial table of contents.
Before going too far, I should mention that I work on a Windows-based computer using Photoshop CS. The instructions in this tutorial will be given with those parameters
in mind. Some facility with Photoshop will be assumed. While the details of the processes will be explained, I won't attempt to provide definitions of every Photoshop
term or how to perform common steps. There are many reference guides to Photoshop that can help you, including the User Guide and the embedded "Help" menu in
Photoshop, but if you've worked (or played) with Photoshop, you're probably familiar enough with the program to do the necessary steps. Additionally, I prefer to use
Photoshop shortcut keys whenever possible. These are a combination of the Shift, Ctrl, and/or Alt keys being held down at the same time and, while continuing to hold
them down, hitting a letter, number, or symbol on the key board. The ones I list will be the defaults that come programmed into Photoshop. If you've altered your
shortcut keys to change the defaults, it's assumed you know what your corresponding shortcut is or can at least restore the defaults. Mac users will know that "Ctrl" on a
PC is the same as "Command" on a Mac and that "Alt" on a PC is the same as "Option" on a Mac. There are usually drop-down menu commands that correspond to the
shortcut keys, but these often become more complex than the shortcut keys, so I generally don't use them. I also like the classic Windows look to my programs with
neutral gray colors, so the screen captures might look a little old-fashioned.
Below is a recent sandstone detail image that incorporates many of the luminosity masking techniques discussed in this tutorial. Luminosity painting (a more advanced
way of using luminosity masks and one discussed in another tutorial on this website) and saturation masking were also used to develop this image. Roll over the image to
see how it looks when the adjustment layers that use luminosity masks are turned off.

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The Basic Mask"Lights"

Luminosity masks are nothing more than selections based on the brightness values of the image. The basic luminosity mask, called "Lights", selects pixels in proportion to
their brightness in the image. There are three different ways to create this basic luminosity mask (Figure 1). I'll list all three alternatives, but you only need to do one of
them to create the selection.

1.Type Alt-Ctrl+~. Hold down the Ctrl and Alt keys and hit the "tilde" which is just to the left of the number "1" key on the US keyboard. If you dont have a US keyboard,
use alternative 2. or 3. If using CS4, CS5, or CS6 this option is now Alt-Ctr+2.
2.Ctrl+click the RGB channel. Hold down the Ctrl key and click thumbnail image of the RGB channel.
3.Drag the RGB channel to the Load Selection button at the bottom of the Channels palette.
Figure 1

The marching ants appear on the image to define the selection (Figure 2). Since Photoshop only puts marching ants around pixels that are at least 50% selected, and since
this selection is based on the brightness of the image, the marching ants only appear around pixels that are equivalent to 50% gray or brighter. I'll discuss this in more
detail later. For now it should be obvious that the marching ants are enclosing the lighter areas of the image.
Figure 2

Once you've created the selection of the light areas of the image, it's a good idea to save it. To do this:
1.Click the Save Selection button at the bottom of the Channels palette. A channel called "Alpha 1" will appear in the Channels palette (Figure 3).
2.Double click on the name "Alpha 1" and type "Lights" and then hit the ENTER key to rename this channel (Figure 4).
3.Click the RGB Channel to make it active and to restore the color view of the image (Figure 4).
4.Type Ctrl+D to turn off the marching ants.
Figure 3
Figure 4

That's it! This is all that's needed to create the luminosity mask for the light areas of the image. It took a bit of writing to explain, but once you try it you'll see how easy it
really is.
Technically, what was actually created in the above steps was an alpha channel of the selection. It won't actually be a mask until it's applied to a layer in the Layers
palette. However, masks and alpha channels look entirely the same, they just reside on different palettes, so I'll be using the term "mask" to describe both from here on.

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Understanding Masks
To appreciate the usefulness of this mask and other luminosity masks, it's important to understand exactly what masks are and how they work. Selections are normally
created in Photoshop using the Marquee, Magic Wand, and Lasso tools. Typically these selection tools create pure black and white masks. That is, if you were to hit the
"Save selection" button on the Channels palette after using one of these selection tools, the mask would be filled with only pure black and pure white with sharply defined
edges. Blurring, feathering, and anti-aliasing can introduce some gray tones for a less abrupt transition, but for the most part, the mask remains mostly all black and white
(Figure 5).
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Figure 5
Masks are routinely used in combination with layers in Photoshop, and the rule for masks is that "white reveals and black conceals." Pure white in the mask allows the
corresponding pixels on the layer to be completely visible in the image. Pure black on the mask blocks the corresponding pixels on the layer from appearing in the image.
It's important to understand that the blocking effect of black in the mask only occurs on the layer to which the mask is applied. If pixels are blocked from appearing on one
layer, Photoshop sequentially looks down to the layers below to find unblocked pixels it can display. Black areas of the mask essentially tell Photoshop to look lower in the
layer stack for what the pixel should look like. Shades of gray in a mask allow pixels to appear in the image in proportion to how light or how dark the gray value is. A mask
that is 50% gray, for example, allows pixels on that layer to be visible in the image at half their normal opacity. Photoshop will have to find the other half from unblocked
pixels deeper in the layer stack. Darker gray values in the mask allow proportionally less of the layer to show and lighter gray values proportionally more.
So now let's take a closer look at the "Lights" luminosity mask that was created. By clicking on the thumbnail image of the "Lights" channel or on the word "Lights" to the
right of the thumbnail, the mask itself is now visible on the main image area in Photoshop (Figure 6). You can see that it is a perfect grayscale positive of the image and
contains very little pure white and pure black. It is composed of shades of gray that perfectly mirror the brightness values in the image. As such, when this mask is applied
to an adjustment layer, it will reveal the effect of the adjustment most on the brightest pixels in the image (white reveals) and proportionally less as the pixels get darker
(black conceals). This leads to one of the most important properties of luminosity masks: they are completely self-feathering. The effect on the image will be obvious, but
there will be no way to tell where the effect begins and where it ends. There are no hard edges like with Photoshop's selection tools and no need to try and make a
perfect selection. Because the luminosity mask was created from the image itself, it has the perfect gradation of shades to insure that each and every pixel will be affected
in exact proportion to its brightness.
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Using the "Lights" Mask

A good way to see how the "Lights" luminosity mask works is with an image called "Zion Narrows" that I posted in an online discussion/critique forum. There were several
comments that it looked a little overexposed. This suggested that the light areas of the image might be a little too bright, so using the "Lights" mask was one possible
solution. An adjustment through the mask would allow me to correct this perceived brightness by darkening the image's light areas since the mask would be
correspondingly light and revealing of the adjustment. It would at the same time protect the shadows from getting too dark since the mask would also be darker and
therefore concealing of the adjustment in these areas. In other words, the mask allows the adjustment to affect predominantly the light areas of the image while at the
same time sparing the dark areas. The process for using the "Lights" mask is relatively straightforward and goes like this:
First create the "Lights" mask as previously described in the The Basic Mask"Lights" section.

Then, and this is very important, make sure the mask is loaded as a selection. If you're using my actions (available at the end of this tutorial) to create a luminosity mask,
the mask is created, placed on the Channels palette, and given the proper name. However, it is not an active selection; there are no marching ants. In order to actually use
the luminosity mask with an adjustment layer, it is necessary to properly load it to make the mask an active selection. This is done using any one of the following methods
(Figure 7):
Type Alt-Ctrl+number. Hold down the Alt and Ctrl keys and type the number of the mask's corresponding channel in the Channels palette (Alt-Ctrl+4 in this case).
Drag the channel to the Load Selection button at the bottom of the Channels palette.
Ctrl+click the thumbnail image or the channel name. (NOTE: Do not Ctrl+click on the eyeball square to the left of the thumbnail image as this does not load the channel
as a selection.)
Figure 7
Once the ants of the selection are marching again, move to the Layers palette. At the bottom of the layers palette is a half white/half black circle which is the "Create new
adjustment layer" button. Click it and choose "Curves . . ." from the pop-up menu that appears (Figure 8).
Figure 8
A new layer immediately appears on the Layers palette with a mask in place that matches the "Lights" mask, which was the active selection. Simultaneously a Curves
dialog box appears (Figure 9).
Figure 9
Make the adjustment in the Curves dialog box to darken the highlights and click "OK". Figure 10 shows the curve I chose and the results with the mask in place. The "white
reveals" rule for masks insures that the adjustment occurs mainly in the light areas of the image. For comparison, I've also shown the results with the mask disabled.
Although it might be difficult to see on a monitor, if you look closely you should be able to make out that without the "black conceals" moderating effect of the mask, the
dark areas in the image get significantly darker as a result of the adjustment.
Figure 10
Don't forget that when creating adjustment layers using luminosity masks, there must be an active selection at the time that the adjustment layer is created. If using my
actions, be sure to load the luminosity mask as a selection (Figure 7) before clicking the "Create new adjustment layer" button. Usually there will be marching ants to
indicate that there is an active selection, but sometimes there won't be, and I'll describe this situation later. If there is no active selection, a pure white square will appear
on the adjustment layer where the mask should be. The white square will allow the adjustment to affect all pixels in the image equally, and not just those intended by the
luminosity mask.

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Different Masks for Different Tones

The self-feathering feature of the luminosity masks makes them incredibly useful. It's like making the perfect selection each and every time with no effort at all. No
zooming-in to make sure all the necessary pixels are included in the selection and no need to go back and touch up the edges of selections after the adjustment is made.
The luminosity mask takes care of all that. In addition, the "Lights" mask is only the starting point for the different types of luminosity masks that can be created. The
"Lights" mask is useful if you want to adjust the light areas of the image, but the shadows and mid-tones frequently need adjustment too. From the basic "Lights"
luminosity mask, a large number of additional masks can be generated that target these other brightness levels in the image. I'll list them below and describe how they are
made. Using this information you should be able to make a series of Photoshop actions to create the various masks. Information on how to obtain a set of actions for all
the luminosity masks is available on the last page of the tutorial. With an action set, you simply need to run the action for a particular mask and it's ready to use.
I've chosen a different image to illustrate the various luminosity masks, one that is less abstract and therefore easier to see the features in the masks. As you look at the
various masks, you will always see a grayscale outline of the original image. Selections from these masks, as a result, will have the perfect tonal gradation so that
adjustments made using the masks will blend in seamlessly.
Figure 11 shows the four masks that target the bright areas of the image:
"Lights"
"Light Lights"
"Bright Lights"
"Super Lights"
They are created by progressively intersecting selections of the same mask. Intersection is when Photoshop creates a new selection by finding the pixels that two
selections have in common. To use it, load a mask as a selection as described in Figure 7 in the Using the "Lights" Mask section. Once the ants are marching, Shift-AltCtrl+click on the same mask to do the intersection operation. In this way, the "Light Lights" mask comes from intersecting the "Lights" mask with itself. The "Bright Lights"
mask comes from intersecting the "Light Lights" mask with itself, and so on. Each gradually narrows the pixels selected to brighter and brighter areas of the image. Check
the "Super Lights" mask in Figure 11. Dark values in the mask are essentially black. Details can only be seen in the lightest values of the image, so only the very lightest
areas will be affected on an adjustment layer with this mask in place. Still, the light areas of the image can be seen as a grayscale positive in the mask which tells you that

the selection generated from this mask will be perfectly feathered for whatever adjustments are made using it. (NOTE: In the latest version of the actions to create the
luminosity masks, an "Ultra Lights" mask has been added. It's created by intersecting the Super Lights selection with itself. The resulting selection selects the only very
brightest tones in the image.)
Figure 11
While the "Lights" mask would seem like a good one to use in adjusting the light areas of the image, "Light Lights" and "Bright Lights" often work better. There is a lot of
gray in the dark values of the "Lights" mask, so adjustments through this mask significantly bleed into the image's dark values. The "Light Lights" and "Bright Lights"
frequently do a better job of isolating the adjustment to just the light values since the dark values of the image are darker gray or even black in these masks.
Now for the darks. The primary "Darks" mask is simply the inverse of the "Lights" mask (Shift-Ctrl+I after loading the "Lights" mask as a selection). Then once again
progressively intersect the masks with themselves to create narrower and narrower selections of the dark areas of the image. The resulting masks are called:
"Darks"
"Dark Darks"
"Shadow Darks"
"Super Darks"
Since the "Darks" luminosity mask is the inverse of the "Lights" mask, these are all negatives of the image. Each progressively restricts the selection to darker and darker
image pixels (Figure 12). In the mask for the "Super Darks", bright areas in the image are essentially black meaning they'll remain unaffected by any adjustment applied
using the mask. In a manner similar to the masks for the light areas, "Dark Darks" and "Shadow Darks" often work best for isolating adjustments to the dark values in the
image. (NOTE: The latest version of the actions to create the luminosity masks also contains an "Ultra Darks" mask, created by intersecting the Super Darks selection with
itself. The resulting selection selects the only very darkest tones in the image.)
Figure 12
The mid-tones are a little trickier to get at, but lead to some very useful masks. You have to first select the entire image (Ctrl+A) and then subtract off one light and one
dark mask. Subtraction is accomplished by an Alt-Ctrl+click on whatever mask you want to subtract. When you remove the light and dark tones of an image, you're left
with mid-tones. For the masks included in the downloadable actions, I've chosen to progressively subtract the masks in the order they're listed above. Here are the midtone masks:
"Basic Mid-Tones" = "Lights" and "Darks" subtracted from the entire image
"Expanded Mid-tones" = "Light Lights" and "Dark Darks" subtracted from the entire image
"Wide Mid-tones" = "Bright Lights" and "Shadow Darks" subtracted from the entire image
"Super Mid-tones" = "Super Lights" and "Super Darks" subtracted from the entire image

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Figure 13 shows that the masks for the mid-tones get progressively lighter as more and more pixels are included in what the selection defines as a mid-tone. You could
obviously choose a variety of ways to make a mid-tones mask since there are four each of the dark and light masks to choose for subtraction. The ones listed here are a
good starting point. To target different tones, you can always subtract or add (Shift-Ctrl+click) additional dark and light masks to the initial mid-tones selection. My
experience is that the "Basic Mid-tones" and "Expanded Mid-tones" masks work well for most mid-tones adjustments. The "Wide" and "Super Mid-tones" can be useful
when creatively combining masks. (NOTE: The newly added "Ultra Lights" and "Ultra Darks" selections also make possible an "Ultra Mid-tones" selection. It's created by
first selecting the entire image, and then subtracting the Ultra Lights and the Ultra Darks. However, because the tonal range of the Ultra Lights and Ultra Darks is so
narrow, the tonal range of the Ultra Mid-tones is so broad that its usefulness in making targeted tonal adjustments is limited. For combining masks, the Ultra Lights and
Ultra Darks work best for making "subtracted masks" which are explained elsewhere in the tutorials.)
Figure 13
The "Basic Mid-tones" mask is one of my favorite luminosity masks. Depending on the image, the mask for it will appear nearly black or very dark. It takes an extremely
steep S-curve in the Curves dialog box applied through this mask to create a noticeable change in the image. In fact, you can pull the quarter tone values to their
respective bottom and top positions, essentially making the S-curve a backwards Z-curve, with only a small change to the image. But what a beautiful change it is! For the
right image, this adjustment is similar to taking the picture with Velvia. It's often provides the perfect pop to contrast and saturation (Figure 14).
Figure 14
As you create luminosity masks, the dialogue box in Figure 15 may pop up. This dialog box is saying that because less than 50% of any pixel's opacity is selected, the
marching ants won't appear. It does not, however, mean that there is no selection. For some luminosity masks, having only 40% or even 20% of pixel opacity selected
works just fine. When you add, subtract, and intersect luminosity masks, it's quite possible to create one where no pixels are more than 50% selected. Such a mask will
appear very dark gray or even black. The "Basic Mid-tones" mask is a good example. Even though there are no marching ants when the mask is loaded as a selection,
adjustments through the mask will still occur and be perfectly feathered. You may need to stretch, push, or pull adjustments to the extreme to see a noticeable difference
in the image, but the luminosity mask will be doing its job of properly targeting the intended tonal values. So if the dialog box shows up, just click "OK" and continue.

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Experimentation is the Key

There is no perfect formula for deciding exactly which luminosity mask to create and use. If one mask gets you close to the effect you're looking for but doesn't quite
work, you can use one with a wider or narrower range to better hit your target tonalities. Trial and error, like many operations in Photoshop, will always play a role.
Working on layers makes experimentation lossless as you can simply discard the layer if it doesn't work. The advantage of using actions to create the masks is that it's
relatively quick to generate them for images less than 50 mb, though there will be some delay as Photoshop automatically executes the steps in the action.
Adding and subtracting masks allow you many more options for targeting specific tones. The masks work great for pulling detail out of the shadows, and they can be used
on pixel-containing layers as well as adjustment layers. I've not personally experimented with Photoshop's High Dynamic Range, but I have used the masks to easily blend
the bright and dark areas of two separate pixel-containing layers after conversion of the RAW file to favor the light and dark areas of the image. While Curves adjustments
were used for demonstration here, the masks work equally well with other adjustment layers like Hue/Saturation, Levels, and Photo Filter. Inverting a selection from a
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mask is also an option when you want to target tones that are the opposite of what a mask selects. Just as there are an unlimited number of luminosity masks when you
start combining them, there is also an infinite number of ways to apply them to an image.
Once you get a feel for what luminosity masks can do, working with them becomes more automatic and quite easy. Figure 16 shows the raw conversion and the final
version of the "Zion Narrows" image along with the set of layers needed to achieve the results. The various luminosity masks employed are noted on the labels for the
layers. It took a few hours to get this worked outeach layer was only an incremental change towards the final imagebut the final image definitely captures my
impression of the place much better than what the camera offered.(Note: A downloadable version of this Photoshop image file is now available in the Examples section. It
will allow you to take a closer look at the masks for each layer and the adjustments through the masks.)
Figure 16
One trick to help you appreciate the way a luminosity mask confines adjustments to specific tonalities is to disable the mask and watch the effect on the image. You
disable the mask with a Shift+click on the mask itself on the adjustment layer (Figure 17). A red "X" appears over the mask when it's disabled. Without the moderating
influence of the mask, the full force of the adjustment becomes visible. One thing you'll find when using the masks is that you can generally make much more dramatic
adjustments, like the backwards "Z" Curves adjustment through the "Basic Mid-tones" mask in Figure 14. Disable the Basic Mid-tones mask there and the image becomes
garishly unacceptable. As you experiment with luminosity masks, don't be afraid to push harder than you normally would on your adjustments to see what happens,
especially if the mask contains a lot of black and dark shades of gray. Making more extreme adjustments will also help you appreciate the smooth blending that the masks
facilitate.
Figure 17
In many cases, like the example above, each layer with a luminosity mask only provides a subtle change to the image, and it will be up to you to figure out how to build
these changes into your personal vision of the scene. The masks are not a quick-fix plug-in, but they are one more tool for the artist photographer to use to add a personal
touch to the scene. For me they have been a wonderful discovery. I rarely need to make selections with Photoshop's traditional tools anymore, and I find the results from
luminosity masks much more to my liking. The actions make the masks easy to generate, and I like the way the tonal gradation of the masks allow adjustments to blend
seamlessly and effortlessly into the image. They are without question one of the most effective ways I've found to manage light in the digital darkroom.
Workflow note: As you begin working with luminosity masks, keep an eye on the Channels palette. Masks tend to accumulate here. Once a mask has served its purpose or
has been incorporated into an adjustment layer, it can be deleted. Saving a file with lots of masks on the Channels palette will definitely increase file size, so get in the
habit of deleting masks from the Channels palette when they are no longer needed.