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Select Colour / Tonal Range to Create Masks


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I just watched a great PS Youtube tutorial video on Luminosity masking that explains a great way to create quick, easy & accurate luminosity masks by using 'tonal ranges.  If you watch this video from the 12 minute mark you can see a simple panel with slider for  previewing and adjusting the target areas.  It would be great if Affinity Photo had similar capabilities.  The video can be found here...... 

 

Bernie

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I agree, Affinity Photo should improve the "select sampled color tool." It's really not too useful -- it's just a simple magic-wand-like tool with a tolerance slider. There isn't even a black-and-white mask preview, nor any clear way to just mask by value, hue, and/or saturation. It really needs work. However, you don't need to do it the way he described in that video.

He also made another video explaining why this isn't always necessary, here:

Affinity Photo absolutely has the feature he uses in this video, except Affinity Photos implementation is wayyyy better because it uses a graph instead of those darn sliders. The graph offers far more control. At the start of this clip I recorded, i'm just taking note of the lightness values I want to target. You don't have to do this -- I just like to be precise:

Also, just ignore me going into the assistant at the end. I had my setting set to child adjustment layers to selected layer by default. Additionally, I opted to use LAB instead of RGB because it doesn't mess up color saturation when trying to do lightness adjustment -- it often looks way better. You can just stick with RGB if you want. If you mess up (like how I accidentally selected a color that was way too bright, and close to white causing curves adjustment to kind of glitch out) you can delete a node in curves adjustment by right clicking it.

And if you want to save some time:

crl + u = HSL

crl + m = curves

crl + L = levels

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Thanks Huniseapi,

I had been trying to figure out Luminosity masking for some time using “Blend Ranges'.  The approach works well but I was frustrated at not being able to create a mask that I could further refine (add or subtract content, or shrink / grow / feather the actual mask).    

By chance I came across a bog post by David Ellinsworth that highlighted a crucial step I was missing in the process.  After using the the 'Blend Range' slider, it's then beneficial to then use the  'Select' > 'Select From Layer' menu option to create a selection (then a mask) from the layer (with blend range applied to it).  This then leaves a mask that can be refined as necessary

I wouldn't think it should be too difficult a task for Serif / Affinity Photo to implement such a panel.

Thanks again.

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3 hours ago, Gibney said:

Thanks Huniseapi,

I had been trying to figure out Luminosity masking for some time using “Blend Ranges'.  The approach works well but I was frustrated at not being able to create a mask that I could further refine (add or subtract content, or shrink / grow / feather the actual mask).    

By chance I came across a bog post by David Ellinsworth that highlighted a crucial step I was missing in the process.  After using the the 'Blend Range' slider, it's then beneficial to then use the  'Select' > 'Select From Layer' menu option to create a selection (then a mask) from the layer (with blend range applied to it).  This then leaves a mask that can be refined as necessary

I wouldn't think it should be too difficult a task for Serif / Affinity Photo to implement such a panel.

Thanks again.

Ah yes, indeed. If you really want to create a mask from it, that is something you can do. 

As a tip, to select the contents of a layer like that, you don't have to go into the layer menu. Just hold crl and click on the thumbnail of the layer. That will make a selection; you can then add a mask. Then you can go back to the blend modes and press reset, since you don't need them anymore.

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