A midtone luminosity mask is a very powerful tool for editing your images in ADP LumiFlow. There are many different ways that they can be used. In this series of videos we’re going to explore the different ways that Midtone Masks can create bright and vibrant images, having them jumping off the screen.
In this tutorial, I show you how to use a Midtone Masks to brighten your images, adding colour and vibrancy.
A midtone mask is a mask that targets the middle tones in your image. Midtone masks eliminate the highlights and the shadows from the selection, allowing us to make adjustments without affecting those areas. They vary in strength from an M1 mask in ADP LumiFlow, which only uses a small amount of information in the midtones. The strongest selection is the M4 selection, which selects a very large range in the midtones.
Visually these masks don’t make a lot of sense. The best way to visualise Midtone Masks is to look at the histogram of tones selected. Below you will see a series of images, below each of the images you will see the Gradient Histogram. This shows the tones selected and the strength of that selection.
The gradient is very similar to looking at a histogram. The left side of the gradient represents the shadows, and the right side the highlights. The areas that are white, represent the areas that are being selected by the masks. So, in the case of the midtones, you are seeing a selection through the middle tones, with the highlights and shadows not being selected. The larger the number of the midtone selection, the stronger (whiter and wider through the midtones) the selection becomes.
From Left to Right: M1, M2, M3, M4
A Midtone Mask is made through a series of subtractions. To create the midtone luminosity masks we are making a selection of the entire image, and subtracting away the areas that we don’t want included, as shown below:
M1: Select All, Subtract Lights 1, Subtract Darks 1
M2: Select All, Subtract Lights 2, Subtract Darks 2
M3: Select All, Subtract Lights 3, Subtract Darks 3
M4: Select All, Subtract Lights 4, Subtract Darks 4
By subtracting away the highlights and the shadows, we are left with a selection through only the middle tones. This allows us to make adjustments in the area of greatest impact in our image, without affecting highlights or shadows.
In this video, I use one technique on three images to create bright and vibrant colours in the images. When tones are lightened in an image, the colours in those areas are also lightened. Through lightening the colours they lose their vibrancy. The two-step technique below lifts the brightness of the midtones, but also increase the colour to bring life back to the image.
Note: if you find the dark areas getting to bright, pull the dark side back down just a little bit.
Note: The luminosity mask will control the area affected by the adjustment. The areas that were lightened the most will be effected the most, and is what you want.
You may find that there are areas of the image that you didn’t want to be affected, particularly around the perimeter of the image. If this is the case follow these steps:
Your image should now have a lot more brightness, and the colours are still rich and vibrant without being oversaturated.