Luminosity Masks: how to transition from Capture One

[ACD0236]

Well, yet another thread about luminosity masks... you guys might be fed up by this annoying question, but for the life of me I can't figure this out so I decided to ask.

I usually do most of my post-production and editing in Capture One Pro, but this software has some limitations and I find Affinity Photo an overall more flexible package with snappier performance and a better interface, so I'm moving my workflow towards Affinity leaving to Capture One the basic tasks of RAW import, lens correction, dynamic range and detail recovery and digital asset management.

That said, as I'm trying to move my very simple masking and layer needs into Affinity Photo, I'm stuck with the problem of luminosity masking.

In Capture One Pro one can create a new adjustment layer only with those pixels that have a luminosity over or under a certain threshold, with tails that slope down. One could then refine the mask, extend it or brush it away, and of course applying every correction just to that layer.

I am struggling to replicate this in Affinity Photo. What I would like to do is to select a luminosity range, create a new masked layer with it and apply adjustments and filters only to it.

I went at it with the most naïve attitude possible and I chose "Select" - "Tonal Range" - "Highlights". I then chose "Edit Selection As Layer" to trim it with the eraser brush, but what to do with it now? I suppose I could turn this into a masked layer and apply my corrections, but it still doesn't give me the flexibility of choosing what my highlights, midtones and shadows really are. Where's the cutoff? Can I change it?

I then tried to go the other way around with blend ranges, which give unparalleled flexibility in selecting to which tonal range I want my filters to be applied, but it gives me no control over which parts of the images I want this setting to be applied to.

Is there something that, well... blends the tonal range selection flexibility of blend ranges and the local control that one can have with brushes and layer masking?

I don't know if I explained my situation with sufficient depth: I bought Affinity some time ago but I didn't delve into it properly until the 1.7 version came out, and I'm not a native English speaker. If there is something I missed please let me know, in the meantime thanks in advance for any reply.

 

[smadell]

There is no reason why. you cannot create a luminosity range using Blend Options, and also use a layer mask to narrow down the areas to which this luma range is applied. Also, remember that adjustment layers and live filter layers already have a built-in mask, and attaching a seperate mask layer, while possible, is not necessary.