Effect on a mask

[verysame]

Hi there,

 

Question: in my workflow, I usually tweak masks by using curves or levels. The curve then becomes a sort of expand-contract for the black-white values, which is pretty helpful for quick tweaks. Is there a way to do the same in AP?

 

If I have a mask, say with a feathered circle, and I create a curve, AP creates a new curve adjustment.

At first, I thought I could simply move the curve adjustment as a mask children, but it seems it doesn't affect the mask.

Now I'm not even sure if this worked in the initial release and perhaps is broken in the current one (1.5.0.39)

 

Any thought?

 

Best,

Andrew

[MEB]

Hi Andrew,

Change the channel on the dropdown to alpha.

[verysame]

Hey MEB,

 

Sorry, I'm not quite sure to understand.

 

Here's the situation.

I've this mask I want to tweak with a curve:

 

 

Then I create a Curve (via CTRL + M):

 

 

Photo adds the Curve to the very top.

Am I supposed to nest the Curve with the Mask?

By the way, I didn't find the alpha blending mode from the dropdown.

I assumed you were referring to the mask drop-down menu, but I guess I should have looked somewhere else?

[verysame]

Just for ref, this is how I do it in PS:

 

 

By doing so, I can clean up, expand or contract mattes.

[harrym]

Not sure if this helps but you can drag that Curves adjustment under the mask so it only applies to the exposure adjustment.

You can also create the exposure adjustment, create the curves adjustment drag it under  the exposure then add the mask if you need a different order.

 

Regards

[MEB]

Hi verysame,

Sorry i should have been more clear. I meant change the channel of the Curve Adjustment to alpha (in you post #3, second screenshot, click on the dropdown that says Master and select Alpha).

 

Regarding your second screenshot (still in post #3): you are applying a mask to an Exposure Adjustment - there's no need to do this: every live filter/adjustment already has a built in mask that you can use to limit its effect to a certain area, so there's no need to attach an additional mask to it.

In the sample below I've created an exposure adjustment and have used the builtin mask to affect just a circular area in the middle of the image - double click it to adjust the exposure of the area defined by the built-in mask. Then i have added/nested a Curves adjustment (turn its visibility on) to affect the built-in mask of the Exposure Adjustment: double click the Curves Adjustment, change the dropdown that say Master to Alpha then change the curve graph as you wish - those changes will affect the mask of the Exposure Adjustment. Hope this helps.

sample.afphoto

[verysame]

Thank you, MEB,

 

That's exactly what I was looking for!

I was actually wondering a few days ago what the Alpha channel was doing in the Curve.

 

Now, that's interesting. In PS I always preferred to preview the alpha because PS doesn't give a real-time feedback update on the actual layer when I tweak the mask like that (at least not CS6).

In your afphoto file, when I'm tweaking the curve I'm not looking at the grayscale value of the mask, but directly at the result on the layer with a real-time feedback, which is much appreciated :)

 

Best,

Andrew

[harrym]

Ah, that's so cool, didn't know that, so much to learn, apologies for the previous uneducated post :)