Adjustment to Luminosity Mask

[Waltarus]

Hi all.  I'm new to Affinity so I hope I'm asking this in the right place.

 

When you make a luminosity selection (by clicking ctrl+alt and clicking the thumbnail) and then open an adjustment layer (say, curves for instance) then click alt and thumbnail to show the mask, can you not make an adjustment to that mask?  Levels, for instance?  I can't seem to make any adjustment to it.  I'm pretty sure you can in PS.

[firstdefence]

You can make the luminosity mask using ctrl + alt (cmd + alt on Mac) then go to the channel panel and righting on pixel selection and make a spare channel. From the channel panel you can load that spare channel into any adjustment layers you want.

So, once you have your spare "luminosity" channel add an adjustment and then right click on the spare "luminosity" channel and select load to "adjustment layer"

[Waltarus]

Thank you, firstdefence. 

When I do that, the adjustment only affects the pixel layer underneath.  Obviously, that would usually be what you'd want but I would like to be able to increase the contrast in the actual mask itself.  When I click alt + the mask to reveal the b&w image, I can't seem to make any adjustments to it.  Is there a way you can do that?

[Jeff McFarland]

On 9/14/2019 at 7:56 AM, Waltarus said:

Thank you, firstdefence. 

When I do that, the adjustment only affects the pixel layer underneath.  Obviously, that would usually be what you'd want but I would like to be able to increase the contrast in the actual mask itself.  When I click alt + the mask to reveal the b&w image, I can't seem to make any adjustments to it.  Is there a way you can do that?

This seems to be something that APhoto should easily be able to do, but I can't figure it out for the life of me. I do this all the time in PS. I can't even use the dodge/burn tool on masks. They don't seem to do anything. WTF?

Would love to switch Affinity full time, but it still doesn't seem to be ready for prime time. I hate Adobe's subscription pricing, but every time I open up Affinity and give it a try I start loving Adobe more and more. 

[mikerofoto]

On 9/14/2019 at 10:56 AM, Waltarus said:

Thank you, firstdefence. 

When I do that, the adjustment only affects the pixel layer underneath.  Obviously, that would usually be what you'd want but I would like to be able to increase the contrast in the actual mask itself.  When I click alt + the mask to reveal the b&w image, I can't seem to make any adjustments to it.  Is there a way you can do that?

when you create that selection its from the pixel layer below, yes and its normal. Once you have you selection with marching ants, add a curve or a brightness/contrast if you want and it will be in a mask, the deselect the selection and do what you want to adjust and add more if you want.

 

here’s a quick tutorial how to create luminosity mask

https://affinity.serif.com/en-gb/tutorials/photo/desktop/video/317427603/

[Waltarus]

Thanks for the reply, mikerofoto.

It seems that what a few of us are having trouble with (on this and another thread) is first making adjustments to the actual mask itself, so that the mask affects an adjustment to the pixel layer in the way we want it to.  

The only workaround I've discovered is to make a luminosity selection.

add selection to a mask, then in channels right click "mask alpha" and create grayscale layer. 

(At this point you can delete the first mask because you won't be using it.) 

Now you can add an adjustment to that grayscale image, levels for instance, and drag the adjustment into the grayscale image.

Select them, and rasterize to mask.  At this point I temporarily turn off that mask so I can see what I'm doing to the background layer.

Now you can put a curves adjustment, for instance, on the background layer to make the sky more dark and dramatic. 

Finally, you can turn back on your mask and drag it below the curves adjustment, so it's only affecting highlights and sky.

Making the adjustment to the mask first, gives you more control over what is going to be affected by subsequent adjustments to your background image.  In PS you can just click the mask and adjust it. (I mean the black and white mask image, NOT the background image) 

If there is a less convoluted way for me to do this in AP, I'd love to know about it, but his method works for me.  It just requires a few extra steps.