Masking complex outlines can be a slow and fiddly business, but there are tools to help, and once you’ve got your mask, there’s a lot you can do with it.
Masks
Masks are related to selections, but they're a more permanent way of masking out adjustments made to an image. For example, you might make an initial selection in an image-editor and then convert it into a layer mask which can be saved with the file and re-edited later if necessary.
How to mask effects in ON1 Photo RAW
Masks can quickly get confusing in ON1 Photo RAW. It’s not the tools themselves which are confusing, but the fact they can be used in three different places: Local adjustments: These are applied to the image as a whole in their own ‘Local’ panel. In other words, they are not associated with any specific layers […]
How to use masks in Luminar
Often you want to apply an effect or adjustment to a whole picture, but not always. Sometimes you only want to apply it to part of the picture, and this is where the Luminar mask tools become really useful.
An Icelandic church edited in Exposure X
This shot of an Icelandic church looked nice enough in color but I thought it had a bit more potential as a black and white image – though there were a few issues I wanted to sort out first. For this project I used Exposure X. The same tools exist in other programs, but I […]
The power of adjustment layers and masks
Adjustment layers started out in Photoshop as a way of altering the look of an image without actually changing its pixels. It was the start of non-destructive editing. Now, adjustment layers are everywhere, not just in Photoshop, and for me they are the key to successful image enhancements. There’s a second factor, though – layer […]
How to use layers in Luminar
This tutorial shows how to use the powerful layers, blend modes and masking tools in Luminar 2018, but actually the same principles can be used in other image-editing programs which support image layers. I’m going to start with a perfectly pleasant lakeside travel shot and give it a more dramatic Game of Thrones look by […]
How to add a new sky to a landscape without selections
Very often in landscape photography you get the landscape or the lighting you want, but not the sky. In the perfect world you’d keep going back again and again until everything was perfect. In our not-so-perfect-world, however, it’s sometimes useful to be able to add a new sky later, as the final touch to an […]