Try This Curves Technique For Easy Luminosity Masks in Affinity Photo

[@justinlow-thion77]

Hi Robin. This is the first time I've watch your video tutorials on Afffinity Photo. The way you explain is really simple and clear. Thanks for your free tutorials. keep up the good work. Justin

[@RobinWhalley]

You're very welcome. Thank you for the great feedback.

[@bransoncarlton4939]

Robin, this is brilliant. I was considering buying Luminar, but I swear I want to make things less complicated. For much of what I do this seems like it will work great, without exporting the file to a third party app, or spending more for another program. Thanks again for your insights and videos, man!

[@RobinWhalley]

I'm glad you like this video. Since I published it, Affinity version 2 has been released with the Luminance Range Mask feature as I cover here kzbin.info/www/bejne/omeXp2x4eq-aodk. It does the same as in this video but makes it a bit easier.

[@paulknight7789]

Hi Robin What a really great way to create luminosity masks. Thank you so much for taking the time and trouble to share this with the Affinity community. Best wishes. Paul

[@RobinWhalley]

You are welcome. I’m glad that you have found it helpful. With a little practice it becomes very easy to target your masks.

[@smartyarts]

Dear Robin, thank you for your explanation, this was very helpful! All the best

[@RobinWhalley]

Glad it was helpful! Thank you

[@stuartbraithwaite1297]

Great method to create luminosity masks. Will definitely give this a go.

[@RobinWhalley]

Thanks. I hope you find it useful.

[@ptst19]

Thx for sharing very interesting. Tve part on loading to selection from light, mid or dark layerin the group is abit difficult to follow, i would appreciate if you do one tut more explaining specifically this technique. Thank you

[@RobinWhalley]

Take a look at my latest video where I show loading the selection from channels. It's exactly the same approach and may help. kzbin.info/www/bejne/gnbagIx3lK6teLM

[@ptst19]

@@RobinWhalley thank you i haveseen the other video before and several time, and this is excatly my source of confusion. In the part when you make your selection, you highlighted the mask layer for the sky. Nevertheless you say hat chanels are extracted from the DARK image. I assume that by the dark you refer to the image with correctly exposed foreground. Believe me, not easy to follow this part.

[@gossedejong9248]

Sir, you are a genius!!! Thank you...

[@RobinWhalley]

Wow, thanks

[@epoelzl]

Thank you for this excellent tutorial, simplifying what can be a challenging and complex task! I like having the luminosity masks on separate layers to easily view what is being altered, which the Blend Options dialog box isn't capable of.

[@RobinWhalley]

Glad it was helpful! Have you seen the new Luminosity Tange Mask in Affinity Photo 2? It's an even simpler version of what I did in this video.

[@epoelzl]

@@RobinWhalley Yes...shortly after viewing your video I watched another one on the three new Range Masks in V2. Very welcome additions! All the best!

[@Moustafa11]

Thank you Robin for all your wonderful tutorials. As a beginner though, I did struggle to follow this one. Are there prerequisite intro tutorials or concepts I can learn to help follow this one? This helps with the how but I struggle with the why and when to use each tool (luminosity mask, levels, color channel, etc.)

[@RobinWhalley]

Hi Moustafa, you are very welcome. With regard to the Luminosity Mask tutorial, it is an advanced subject. Have you seen my KZbin Affinity Photo Course? There is a masks tutorial in that which may help you more initially. Here's a link to that video and you will find links in the KZbin description to the rest of the course kzbin.info/www/bejne/pZ3PaYmgjKmDnpo

[@Moustafa11]

@@RobinWhalley Thank you, Robin. This is very helpful!

[@chrisbartlett8146]

Thanks Robin This is a much easier way to create Luminosity masks in Affinity and probably easier to create a macro which I shall try. BTW interested to see what you think of NIK 5

[@RobinWhalley]

It does work great with a macro for setting everything up. Unfortunately I wasn’t able to cover the new Nik Collection this year due to other commitments. I will be trying to do something for my newsletter if you subscribe to that. I have though seen a presentation of a beta version which looked good. There isn’t a huge amount of change but it’s nice to see Color Efex and Analog Efex moving to the new interface. Analog Efex especially needed this in my opinion as it was far too confusing before.

[@davidellinsworth22]

Really cool method. What do you think of the red overlay/blend ranges method?.... Duplicate background layer > draw a red rectangle over it > group those two layers > with the group selected use underlying composition ranges (within blend ranges) to manipulate what tones you'd like to mask - the portion of the red overlay that remain is what you have masked. Whatever adjustment or live filter you put within the group will be masked to those tones. This method was conceived by Olivio Sarikas, and I made a variation of it to enable selections of the masked tones, which I have put in a blog on my website

[@RobinWhalley]

Thanks. I don’t think I’m familiar with that method from your description. I need to try it as I’ve used lots of different techniques in the past and many don’t have names. It’s often only when I try something that I recognise it.

[@davidellinsworth22]

@@RobinWhalley it's a really neat method, and very quick.

[@jameschilton3556]

Thanks Robin - that's a great way to create luminosity masks. However, I still find it a bit convoluted when compared with Blend Ranges which are a really powerful alternative and so much easier and quicker to use. I used to be really envious of Adobe users and their access to Luminosity plug-ins but to be honest I probably wouldn't use them even if they were available in Affinity now.

[@RobinWhalley]

I do refer people to my Blend Ranges video at the end of this one. Some people like to see a visual of the mask whilst others are happy using the Blend Ranges. It's the same in Photoshop where some people are happy to use BlendIf and others like to see the Luminosity Mask. Ultimately we just need to get to the end result that we are trying to achieve.

[@kevinlewis9098]

Robin thanks for posting this video, it has really upped my game with editing. Quick question if I may, when you select a color channel I noticed red was always selected, would there be a time to select Green or Blue? I am heading back into one of "practice" images to see. Thanks Kevin

[@RobinWhalley]

Once the image is converted to black and white, the three colour channels are the same so it doesn't matter which one you seelct. It's only if the image is in colour that you will see differences between the three. Then there may be benefit from selecting one over the other depending on what you want to target.

[@kevinlewis9098]

@@RobinWhalley thanks Robin

[@katm1884]

Command control click is the only way I can access channel submenus. Any idea why? Good tutorial

[@RobinWhalley]

Thanks. I'm sorry, I don't know why you can't access the Channels menus without using a keyboard shortcut. That sounds strange. I would try asking on the Affinity Photo Forum on the Affinity Website. One of the Affinity staff may know.

[@torbjrnjohnsen4065]

Thanks Robin. I'll try this. Keep up the good work. 👍

[@RobinWhalley]

I hope that it works well for you.

[@chrisraine1326]

Great technique there robin. Thanks 👍👍😁

[@RobinWhalley]

Glad you like it. Thank you.

[@adamsbarra4851]

Hi Robin, I followed along with your video but was having some trouble getting it to work on my end. I got the 4 layers grouped and the pixel layer added. but this is where I got lost on what I should be doing. im not sure if you are selecting a specific colour channel.

[@RobinWhalley]

To load the black and white mask as a selection, right click on any of the composite colour channels. You don't need to select them, only right click. You can then use the "Load to Pixel selection" option. Alternatively, if you have Affinity Photo 2, you now have the same functionality built into the new Luminosity Mask feature.

[@manuelremusstanca5539]

Very good method and very useful! Thx!

[@RobinWhalley]

You're welcome! I’m pleased that you liked it.

[@adamkeinan6387]

Simply Wonderful

[@RobinWhalley]

Many thanks!

[@Goldmangun]

Brilliant, thank you! 🙏

[@RobinWhalley]

You're very welcome! Thank you

[@rondawoolgar6391]

Thank you so much for this video . I have watched it so many times to try and make luminosity masks work for me . I think I nearly have it . Can I ask you a question please ? When I have loaded my selected mask ,ie say darks , to pixel selection ... when I paint on the layer with white I seem to still be able to lighten all parts of the image, not just the darks . Is this right or am i still missing a step ? Thanks again for your instruction

[@RobinWhalley]

It sounds like you are painting on the layer with white rather than the layer mask (which should have been inverted to black).

[@thegroove2000]

If you were to buy knowing what you know now, which would you choose. DXO etc?

[@RobinWhalley]

It depends what I want to do. To date, I don’t believe there is a single do everything tool.

[@thomdodd6166]

I've watched the video several times and followed step by step. But when I turn off the group, the photo stays B&W. If I save, close, and re-open, the photo is in color. And I'm unable to paint, (yes, brush is selected). Is there an option that I'm missing?

[@RobinWhalley]

My best guess is that you only have one of the channels selected in the channles panel when you hide the group. That would keep the image looking black and white. If you look at the Channels studio panel you should see a small curved arrow to the top right. Click that and it will reset the panel so you are viewing the three colour channels and the image should be in colour again.

[@rickyperez2066]

Excellent, thanks

[@RobinWhalley]

You are welcome! Thank you.

[@tbg3111]

Wow, my head is swimming. That's a lot of information for a neophyte.

[@RobinWhalley]

Sorry that it’s a lot to take in but do try to remember it. I guarantee it will be useful to you many times in the future.

[@photographedemode]

👏

[@RobinWhalley]

Thank you

[@tonyb2760]

I wish they, "Affinity" or someone would just make or allow panels to work in the program like Photoshop. I would then kick Adobe to the curb.

[@RobinWhalley]

I wish they would as well but this method isn’t bad.

[@skins3738]

No paint is coming out of my brush. This happens all the time for no reason. The eraser tool is also not working. This also happens all the time. Nothing will paint on the pixel layer. When I turn them all off the paintbrush works fine. Your exercise is not working even slightly for me. I can paint on the layer directly not the added pixel layer. Nothing happens when I paint on the added layer. I have deleted the layer and added a new one and the same thing keeps happening. If I copy the layer then I can paint on the copy. It will not paint on a new layer that is not a copy of the photo!!! As soon as I create a selection from a channel I lose the ability to paint on the added layer. I have tried this on many pictures and the same thing keeps happening. I figured it out. I didn't reset the channels after making the selection. When I did, it worked as it should.

[@RobinWhalley]

I'm glad to hear that you figured out the problem.