With luminosity masks we create perfect hard edge selections to replace skies and cut out objects. You can make very powerful selections that may otherwise be unachievable in Photoshop.
Luminosity Masks are traditionally used to blend images or work within specific tonal ranges within images. They’re a great tool for these tasks because of the feathering on the edges of selections. Creating very smooth transitions during your edit. They can also be used to make hard edge selections with a little refinement. Making them a great all around selection tool.
Intermediate and advanced Photoshop users have many methods to achieve the same results in their editing. Having many methods to achieve similar results is very important for Photoshop users. Preferred method do not always yield the results we are looking for.
One of the most difficult things that we can do in Photoshop is make accurate selections. This is particularly difficult when we’re replacing or cutting out of objects in our images. Photoshop gives us some great selection tools such as the Magic Wand and Quick Selection tools. And, the Refine Edge tool to further refine our selections. These tools can work very well for us, but it can get quite cumbersome at times. They also don’t always give us the results we desire.
Using Luminosity gives us an additional option when it comes to making our hard edged selections.Typically they’re used for the feathering they give us in selections. Modifying them and refining our selections can give us hard edge selections. In this tutorial I give two examples of how they can be used to make hard edged selections. From our initial luminosity selection, we use the built in tools to convert them to accurate hard edge selections.
With any selection tool, we require there to be some kind of tonal separation between objects. So, if you have objects which have virtually the same tonal value, Luminosity tools will struggle. With some tonal separation in your objects, this may be the perfect tool for you.