STEP BY STEP MASTERING LUMINOSITY MASKS
Use our free Actions to create your own Luminosity masks for a fine degree of control
01 CHANNELS PANEL
This separates the image into red, green and blue channels (for RGB images). We can also create our own channels. To begin making Luminosity masks, hold Cmd/ctrl and click on the RGB channel. This loads the Luminosity of the image as a selection. Once done, click the ‘Save selection as channel’ icon. This is the first level of Highlights. Double-click to rename it as Highlights 1.
02 MAKE HIGHLIGHT CHANNELS
After making an initial channel, you can target the next level of brightness within this channel. Hold Cmd/ctrl+shift+alt (this is the keyboard shortcut for Intersect) and then click on Highlights 1 to load the Luminosity of this channel as a selection, then click the ‘Save Selection as channel’ icon to create a new channel. Introduce as many highlight levels as you like.
03 CREATE SHADOWS CHANNELS
To create shadows levels, Cmd/ctrl+click the RGB channel, then go to Select > Inverse. Now you can make your first shadows channel, renamed Shadows 1. From here, hold Cmd/ctrl+shift+alt and click on the Shadows 1 channel to load the darker parts of it as a new selection, then make a new channel named Shadows 2. Now you can make more channels to target darker and darker ranges.
04 MAKE A MIDTONES CHANNEL
As well as making channels for different highlight and shadow levels, you can do it for midtones. Hold Cmd/ctrl and click the Highlights 1 channel to load it as a selection, then hold Cmd/ctrl+shift+alt and click Shadows 1. You might see a warning that nothing above 50% is selected, but that’s fine; areas will still be included. Hit OK, click ‘Save selection as channel’ and rename it ‘Midtones’.
05 USE ADJUSTMENT LAYERS
Use channels to target areas with precision. If the highlights are washed out then click through the highlight channels to find the best option – targeted areas will be white. Cmd/ctrl+click the chosen channel, then click on the RGB channel to go to the normal view. Now go to the Layers panel, click the Create Adjustment Layer icon and choose Curves. Move the line to lighten or darken the area.
06 FINE-TUNE MASKS
When adjusting ranges of Luminosity you might find that you get some unwanted results. If so, highlight the layer mask of the relevant Adjustment Layer, then grab the Brush tool and paint black over the affected parts to exclude them from the effect. It usually takes a couple of strokes to fix the problem. To copy a mask to a new Adjustment Layer, hold Alt and drag the thumbnail across.