Inverted Masks, Masked Luminosity Painting, Blurred Masks - Good Light Journal

7/28/2014 Inverted Masks, Masked Luminosity Painting, Blurred Masks | Good Light Journal
http://tonykuyper.wordpress.com/2012/06/14/inverted-masks-masked-luminosity-painting-blurred-masks/ 1/9
Information from Tony Kuyper
Inverted Masks, Masked Luminosity Painting,
Blurred Masks
JUNE 14, 2012
tags: luminosity mask, luminosity painting, painted luminosity mask
In a previous post (http://tonykuyper.wordpress.com/2010/03/27/my-favorite-technique/) I
described how luminosity painting is one of my favorite techniques for balancing the light in an image.
The technique can be effectively used to burn or dodge specific parts of an image while maintaining
tonal contrast in the areas being painted. In this post Ill expand on the technique a little more and show
some variations in the procedure that can be useful.
Unlike black and white images where a full tonal range from delicate whites to detailed shadows is
often desirable, color images usually look better with the highlights retaining some good color instead
of going to light or pure white. In fact, Ive developed a preference for a left-shifted histogram for color
imagesno whites at all and mostly composed of mid-tones and quarter tones as seen in the histogram
below.
Even though there may not be many of them in an image, getting the brightest values correct is still
important. This is difficult to do sometimes because simply darkening white values yields gray, which
really has no color either, and doesnt contribute to the richness that may be desired. A good place to
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start to achieve the proper light tones is with RAW conversion, making sure there are no clipped
highlights and that the light tones are already left-shifted and retaining color. This allows them to be
further developed to the proper brightness and contrast in Photoshop.
The image below is one that I consider nearly finished. Color, brightness, contrast, and saturation had
been addressed during processing, and on-screen it seemed nearly as good as I could make it. I usually
let the print help make the final call as to when an image is actually finished, and the light values in this
image looked a little weak in the print. They had too much tonal whiteness and not enough color
richness. The rollover of the image (it may take a few seconds to load) shows the final version after the
light tone had been further addressed. These tones have been darkened in the rollover and have richer
color, but the contrast in these light values has been retained to bring out the texture.
There are, of course, many ways luminosity masks could be used to make this adjustment. What Ill
illustrate here is a way to do it with a combination of techniques, each of which may also be useful in
other situations.
INVERTED MASKS
The first thing that will be done is to luminosity paint through an inverted luminosity mask. Ive
previously written that these inverted masks arent too useful. They tend to include a lot of tones and
dont isolate specific tones as a result. However, there is a dictum with luminosity masks that point to a
way in which inverted masks might be useful:
To increase contrast in an image when luminosity painting, paint white through a Lights-series
mask or paint black through a Darks-series mask.
Because of the way luminosity masks are generated, each series concentrates the selection progressively
towards one end of the tonal spectrum. The Lights-series masks, for example, have fewer and fewer
tones as the masks progress from Lights to Light Lights to Bright Lights and finally to Super Lights.
The tones that do remain in the progression are the whitest and lightest with pure white being selected
in every mask. Luminosity painting through a Lights-series mask, therefore, deposits more paint on the
less-masked light tones than on the relatively more-masked darker tones. So painting with white means
that the light tones get more paint and get lighter faster than the darker tones, which receive less paint.
The end result being increased contrast in the area being painted. The opposite happens when painting
with black through a Lights-series maskthe less-masked light tones receive more black paint and
darken faster than the more-masked darker tones, which in turn decreases contrast in the area being
painted.
Any inverted mask switches to the opposite series. An inverted Light Lights mask, for example, is
effectively a Darks-series mask. Even though the inverted mask doesnt have a name, its character is
decidedly that of a Darks-series mask, namely that the parts of the image that show in the mask are a
gray-scale negative of the original image with the darkest tones being 100% pure white in the mask.
This is demonstrated in the Light Lights mask for the above image which is shown below. The rollover
shows the Darks-series inverse.
So according to the dictum, painting black through the inverted Lights Lights selection, which
becomes a Darks-series selection, should darken and increase contrast in the areas that receive paint.
Thats what was done in this case. The process is as follows:
1. Create the Burn/Dodge layer (new layer > fill with 50% gray > set blending mode to Soft Light)
2. Create a Light Lights selection (and save a copy as a mask on the Channels panel).
3. Invert the selection.
4. Hide the marching ants.
5. Make sure the foreground color is set to black.
6. Paint black onto the Burn/Dodge layer through the inverted Light Lights selection (a 33% opacity
soft brush was used)
7. Deselect the hidden selection when done.
After luminosity painting through the inverted Light Lights mask, the Burn/Dodge layer looked like
the image below. The areas darker than 50% gray cause darkening in the image.
The resultant image is shown below. The too-light areas have been made darker and painting through
a luminosity mask has blended the darkening into the rest of the image, but its overdone. There is now
a blackness in some of the areas that were painted as well as some dark haloing along the center ridge.
This is because the broad, inverted selection allowed the paint to be applied in a very imprecise manner.
Too much black paint reached the darker pixels in the image because they are substantially revealed
by the inverted selection. While this is expected, the image has taken on a color gloppiness as a result.
For reference, the rollover is the original image.
It may be hard to notice, but within this heavy-handed paint job the desired darkening of the light
tones has been achieved along with a slight boost in their overall contrast. Black paint applied through
a Darks-series mask (the inverted Light Lights in this case) insures this. Now its just a matter of fine-
tuning the painting to separate the properly-painted pixels from the poorly-painted ones.
MASKING LUMINOSITY PAINTING
A luminosity layer mask on the luminosity-painted Burn/Dodge layer is the way to reveal the good
parts of this bad paint job. Interestingly, the Light Lights mask, the one that was inverted for
luminosity painting, can now serve as the correct mask to reveal the desired darkening in the pixels
that were originally too light. While simply adding the Light Lights mask as a layer mask does a pretty
good job, I prefer to actually paint the mask through the Light Lights selection so as to create a more
precise reveal and to augment it with multiple brush strokes in specific areas. The procedure is as
follows.
1. Create a Hide All layer mask on the Burn/Dodge layer (a black layer mask).
2. Create a Light Lights selection. (NOTE: Its best to use the original Light Lights mask from the
unpainted image instead of creating a new one from the now gloppy image. The original Light
Lights mask can be stored on the Channels panel when its created and reselected at this point.)
3. Hide the marching ants.
4. Make sure that the mask is selected for painting and that white is the foreground color.
5. Paint white onto the layer mask (100% opacity, soft brush) in the areas where the darkening effect
of the luminosity painting needs to be revealed.
6. Deselect the hidden selection when done.
Imprecision in painting this time has a much less deleterious effect on the image. The Light Lights
selection is much narrower than its tonal inverse. As such, its harder to paint outside the lines because
the selection is more confining as to where paint gets applied. Some care needs to be taken in smaller
confined areas or where multiple brush strokes are used, but overall a few wide strokes of the brush
creates the painted mask that reveals the darkening in just those areas where its needed. The
remaining dark areas of the painted mask effectively conceal the gloppiness of the original paint job.
Below is the painted mask that was created. The whitest areas are where multiple brush strokes were
applied to create greater reveal of the luminosity painting.
The image that results after painting the layer mask for the Burn/Dodge layer is shown below. The
rollover is the unmasked layer with the gloppy luminosity painting that was visible without the layer
mask.
The painted mask effectively selected the right pixels to reveal in order to achieve the desired darkening
effect in the light tones of the image. This is a good example of how luminosity mask selections, when
employed in painting, can correctly select tones and seamlessly blend the desired effect into the rest of
the image. Whats most remarkable in this case is that even after the grossly overdone luminosity
painting through the inverted mask, painting a layer mask through the Light Lights selection was still
able to reveal just the right amount of tonal adjustment for each pixel that received paint and almost
effortlessly facilitated the desired adjustment to the image.
The blue highlighted layer below shows how this Burn/Dodge luminosity painting layer with its
painted layer mask looked in Photoshops Layers panel when the procedure was complete.
BLURRING THE MASK
While I dont often feel it necessary to blur luminosity masks, this is one time that it helped. Light tones
tend to blend together visually. Blurring the mask provides a bit of increased sharpness, which causes
what texture there is in the light tones to become a bit more visually separated. When I apply blur to
luminosity masks, its usually a 21-pixel Gaussian blur. That amount was chosen to correlate with
my 21-megapixel camera, but Im not really sure if there is any correlation at all. For whatever reason,
the 21-pixel Gaussian blur seems to provide a good result when used to blur a luminosity mask. The
blurred mask is shown below.
Below is the final image after the blur was applied to the layer mask. The rollover is the image with the
unblurred layer mask. The difference may be hard to see in this size image, but it has a nice effect on a
larger jpeg and the actual print.
In summary, three steps were used to make this adjustment:
1. Paint through an inverted luminosity mask to maintain/enhance contrast.
2. Create a painted layer mask by painting through a luminosity mask selection to reveal the
luminosity painting to the appropriate degree in the appropriate pixels.
3. Blur the layer mask if it helps to improve textures/contrast.
If youd like to practice this technique on this image, a larger version with a prominent copyright
symbol is available for download here (http://goodlight.us/writing/blog-posts/download-image-
1.psd).
from Digital Techniques
4 Comments leave one
1. Antonio Biggio PERMALINK
June 15, 2012 12:11 pm
Another great tutorial. Thank you
Antonio
PS: what is Auto PF correction layer in the pallet?
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Tony Kuyper PERMALINK*
June 15, 2012 8:08 pm
The Auto PF correction layer is a Photoshop action to remove purple fringing. I bought mine
years ago from a friend and have carried it forward with every new computer and version of
Photoshop. It does an excellent job of removing purple fringing that is sometimes obvious in
areas of light-dark contrast. I think it works great and will sometimes duplicate the layer
produced by the action to enhance the effect a bit more if need be. Google suggests you can
purchase it at: http://www.clipclip.org/ky1008/clips/detail/7320. I didnt purchase mine here, so
I cant vouch for the site, but the actions author is Shay Stephens, so that looks legit, and the
price was $10, so that matches too.
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2. aaroncowanphotos PERMALINK
October 8, 2013 3:30 pm
Tony,
Does inverting the Light Lights channel simply result in the Dark Darks channel?
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Tony Kuyper PERMALINK*
October 14, 2013 4:06 pm
No. While the Lights and the Darks selections are the inverse of each other, the rest of the
selections in the Lights and Darks series are not the inverse of each other. Instead, the rest of
the masks in each series are derived from the initial Lights or Darks masks through selection
intersection (or multiplication).
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