PS Luminosity Based Masking vs Dens 3 Tone

[Brencam]

Hi,
I've used PWP for a few years now and have tried out Dens 3 tone masking a few times - while it works it seems a bit cumbersome with lots of 'suck it and see', redo, remask etc. I just came across what seems to be a similar (perhaps more flexible) approach to luminance masking available via some Photoshop Actions (requires full PS however). Here's a link to some excellent tutorials and examples on this topic by Tony Kuyper - even if you don't use PS this is highly recommended reading - the same principals apply regardless of the software used for editing. (Based on some of the feedback and links on his site TK's luminance masks seem to be highly regarded by his fellow pros and several fine art photographers).

http://www.goodlight.us/writing/luminos ... sks-1.html

I don't have the full PS so unfortunately I can't test these out. Has anyone here looked at these - I'd be curious re how they compare with Den's 3 tone approach. (FWIW they seem to offer more granularity and more automation than the 3 tone masking - but that might be overkill for most images).

Den - if you are out there I'd love to hear your comments/feedback on this. FWIW I think your 3 tone stuff is great - my only caveat is that it is a bit labour intensive.

Thanks for listening,
Brendan

[keithrj]

Brendan, in the Mask dialog there is a Brightness Curve button which I use frequently to generate a luminosity mask. The great thing about this tool is you can use the curve adjustments to accentuate the bright/dark areas of the image you wish to work with. The resulting mask can be inspected to see if it fits with the parts of the image you wish to adjust. Once you are happy with the mask you simply use it in your other transformations. I often create a very high contrast mask by creating a very steep S curve in the appropriate portion of the image I wish to adjust.

Can't provide screen shots right now but would be happy to do so later if required.

[ksinkel]

Of course in addition to luminosity masking, PWP 5.0 has the 3-zone trnsformation inspired by Den's 3-tone process. If you are not familiar with it, there is a white paper describing it here: http://dl-c.com/content/view/34/55/

Kiril

[Brencam]

Kiril, Keith,
Thx for your responses - I'm pretty familiar with the pwp brightness mask and use it frequently (I've been using pwp (v3.5 and v4 - guess it's time to upgrade for over 3 years) and the masking facilities are much more intuitive than ps). I've also used Den's 3 tone process but the mask making, feathering, blurring etc is all manual and often needs to be redone - however the results are often worth the effort (no way can I match Den's results). (It's not for the faint hearted imho). (It would be great if we had some video tutorials (You Tube maybe) on this - hint to Den - maybe even a PWP workshop somewhere.

That said, I'm intrigued by TK's luminance masks - as I said earlier I think it's worth reviewing his tutorial even if you don't use ps. Based on my initial reading it seems that TK's PS actions create the required masks automatically as separate layers- about 12 total ranging from dark darks, midtones and light lights etc. It's up to the user to then apply the appropriate transformations (curves etc) against the appropriate mask(s). This seems more flexible and granular the 3 tone masking in pwp - but I don't have a way to try it out - I have an old copy of PS Elements that I may try out - however PSE is missing some features needed to support this workflow. If I have any luck with PSE I'll post back here with any further thoughts.
Kiril - thx for the heads up on this.

Brendan

[den]

The suggested tone range luminosity masks of the tutorial are not particularly difficult to achieve with PWP. As PhotoShop normally functions in the RGB color space model, achieving a luminosity based mask is somewhat more involved then it is using PWP’s Mask Tool and its HSV-V channel for luminosity. The masks will be slightly different but essentially the same.

The tutorial’s masks have well blended transition zones so there will be no noticeable halos nor tone reversals when used but the image changes for tone/color will be rather limited and mild.

With 3Tone asymmetrical masks, more aggressive tone mapping of tone/color is possible.

Also the graininess observed in the tutorial’s illustrations appears to be the result of illustration over-sharpening rather than related to the proposed mask forming technique.

If you wish to duplicate the tutorial author’s tone/color adjustments, remember that they are done in the RGB color space model. In PWP, the default color space model is HSV, so tone (HSV-V) as well as color (HSV-S) changes will be needed to achieve equivalency or use the BrighntessCurve transform in RGB color space.

The tutorial’s tone range luminosity masks formations using PWP:
(1) The “Lights” luminosity masks: click on an image and open the Mask Tool Brightness Curve ; form and ‘lower-left’ Apply – Add a Smooth curve [0,0], [50,20], [100,100]. Move the [50,20] control point to the right to achieve more strongly isolated “lights”.

zlights_mask-1.jpg (45.57 KiB) Viewed 3869 times

(2) The “Darks” luminosity masks: click on an image and open the Mask Tool Brightness Curve ; form and ‘lower-left’ Apply – Add a Gamma curve [0,0], [50,60], [100,100]; and then click Invert. Move the [50,60] control point vertically to achieve more strongly isolated “darks”.

zdarks_mask-1.jpg (44.61 KiB) Viewed 3861 times

(3) The “Mid-tones” luminosity masks: click on an image and open the Mask Tool Brightness Curve ; form and ‘lower-left’ Apply – Add a Smooth curve [0,0], [50,20], [100,0]. Move the [50,20] control point vertically to achieve more strongly isolated “Mid-tones”.

zmid-tones_mask-1.jpg (42.47 KiB) Viewed 3860 times