Luminosity mask - One setting only?

[lphilpot]

This is really more of a point of curiosity, not a limitation, since I can use Blend Ranges to do what I need instead. But the luminosity masks I've seen elsewhere (PS, GIMP, etc.) generally have a range of three to eight or more variants, typically, depending on the plugin at work: dark shadows, mid shadows, lower midtones, higher midtones, lower highlights and so forth.

Creating a luminosity mask in Photo has (as far as I can tell) only one choice, which appears to be fairly balanced and not skewed to one end or the other. Is there a way to create a range of luminosity masks instead?

Once again, it's mostly just for my curiosity since Blend Ranges are easier, more dynamic and less work. Just wondering.

Thanks.

[NotMyFault]

The mask shoes an area similar to blend ranges. You can create all the mentioned 8 variants by adding nodes and change their position.

[NotMyFault]

9 minutes ago, lphilpot said:

Once again, it's mostly just for my curiosity since Blend Ranges are easier, more dynamic and less work. Just wondering.

Unfortunately, blend rages stop working in some situations, see

https://forum.affinity.serif.com/index.php?/search/&q=Blend range bug&quick=1&search_and_or=and&sortby=relevancy

[RichardMH]

You can construct them from channels. Maybe easiest way is luminosity from LAB and use multiply and invert. Problem is you can't name the spare channels in a macro. The new luminosity masks are easier.

[rvst]

duplicate - fumbled an edit

[rvst]

7 hours ago, lphilpot said:

Creating a luminosity mask in Photo has (as far as I can tell) only one choice

The drop down box on the top left of the luminosity mask window has three presets for shadows, midtones and highlights - which of course you can modify to create any  of the variants. When it comes up, the box is unpopulated, so you have to drop it down to see the choices

[lphilpot]

1 hour ago, rvst said:

The drop down box on the top left of the luminosity mask window has three presets for shadows, midtones and highlights

Oh, OK... A Live Luminosity Range mask. I was talking about the Ctrl+Alt+left-click luminosity mask as described in https://affinity.help/photo2/en-US.lproj/index.html?page=pages/Layers/LayerMasks.html?title=Layer masks.

I think Serif needs to clean up the help docs and / or clarify the difference between the new Live Luminosity Range Masks and the previous Luminosity Masks.

I have to admit I've not read / experimented closely enough yet to really understand the true difference between them nor specifically what makes a Live range mask better (superficially it looks obvious, I just haven't gone into detail to internalize any learning). I can usually get where I need to be, I'm just not too fluent. If I was doing this professionally I would be up to speed, but as a hobbyist photographer, I just use what I need when I need it.  🙂  Plus I'm also in learning mode for about five other things simultaneously...

8 hours ago, RichardMH said:

You can construct them from channels. Maybe easiest way is luminosity from LAB and use multiply and invert. Problem is you can't name the spare channels in a macro. The new luminosity masks are easier.

Yeah, the shortcomings of the current macro facility are pretty ... short ... at times. Imagine having a true API and writing useful scripts.

[NotMyFault]

There are 3 tools with overlapping functionality:

1. blend ranges
2. luminosity mask
3. live luminosity mask

blend ranges are flexible, allowing to create luminosity curves, and be created on values from the actual layer or layers below. You can choose individual color channels, but are always bound to RGB channel even in CMYK or LAB mode. This can be a feature or undesired.

They stop working when combined with masks (unfixed bug)

luminosity mask are most basic, no parameters to set. No capable to use in non-destructive Workflows. Once you created the selection, it will not update if the layer changes which was used as basis. Actually does not create a mask, but a selection. Affinity‘s usage of the terms mask and selection is quite inconsequential (quick mask is a selection, too).

live luminosity mask are almost equivalent with blend ranges (using ‚master‘), but can be combined with other masks into compound masks - this was not possible before. 
 

For me it is interesting that Affinity did not (yet) fix the bugs when using blend ranges, but introduced a new concept of live luminosity masks.

As the live masks are restricted to Photo, you depend on blend ranges in Designer and Publisher.

[loukash]

2 hours ago, NotMyFault said:

As the live masks are restricted to Photo, you depend on blend ranges in Designer and Publisher.

Just a reminder:
If you have Photo, simply add the Live Mask there and return back to whatever you were doing in APu/ADe. Nothing will prevent you from editing it in APu/ADe later on.

[smadell]

@lphilpot - you might want to have a look at this thread…

 

[lphilpot]

1 hour ago, smadell said:

@lphilpot - you might want to have a look at this thread…

Thanks for the pointer! That looks interesting, if for no other reason just to have and play with.