Someone was asking about these things a while ago. I have the answer to all your problems. As long as you use Photoshop! GOOGLE Jimmy McIntyre photographer and find the download on his website for the Easy Panel extension for PS. Not only does it have automatic luminosity masks at the click of a button it also does a load of other things, also at the click of a button. The only downside is that you have to install it yourself; basically download it and copy and paste into the extensions file in PS. Oh and you have to subscribe to his emails which when you look at some of the stuff he's done on 500 pixels and shutter-evolve is no great hardship. The luminosity mask is subtle but it does work nicely. Oh, and it's FREE!!!!!! Thank you Jimmy.
Watched a few of his vids on YouTube and it looks a decent add on. Always got the impression it was paid for so never bothered looking into it more. *edit It's his raya pro add on that costs.
Great that someone is passionate about his art to share some of his tools. Thanks for sharing. The YouTube vids are interesting but I probably will not load the tool.
I had a play with it last night on one of the traction engines from Llandudno. You have to go into channels and select the individual masks and all I did was alter the levels in each mask. The effect is cumulative and can be quite striking. One thing I did notice is that it can change colours and also let faint colours bleed through particularly in paint covered surfaces. It can increase the detail level but you have to pick your pictures to use the process on. It's also quite tedious but at least it does produce the masks automatically which is three quarters of the job done for you. It would work really well on a sunset with rocks in the foreground of a beach rising up to the cliffs bathed in the soft evening light ......I dream of course!
I am learning Photoshop at the moment (massive learning curve) so I read this with interest I looked at Jimmy McIntyre s vids and an American lad who says the same thing. The objective seems to be sorting foregrounds and backgrounds out but my thoughts on looking at the vids was why not just use a graduated filter in Lightroom then lighten selected areas with brush or radial filter ? I am sure I am missing something it seems the luminosity route might be more powerful but only marginally unless I am missing something which I am sure I am I am a baby on Photoshop
The beauty with the mask is is that you can work on a very isolated area within a limited dynamic range. They do look better but in many cases I suspect it's not worth the effort. They really come into their own on longish exposures with many and varied different levels. VERY labour intensive though. Graduated filters won't do this although they are very useful in other areas for balancing sky and land for example.
