Free Luminosity Masks Plug-Ins for Photoshop?

[Hawkmooon]

I've been using Lightroom for a while and now am trying to learn Photoshop CC. I've watched several tutorials about Luminosity Masks and they seem pretty cool. However, all the tutorials use plug-ins that cost money. While I don't mind paying for something that I use, I'm not yet ready to commit to a plug-in when I have no idea if it's something that I'll want in a week or month from now.

Is there a free plug-in available that I can use to learn the gist of Luminosity Masks? My internet searching hasn't yielded anything. Also, if anyone has a favorite YouTube link for learning them...let me know.

Thanks!

 

[Ernie Misner]

You can always play with the masks in the free version of Topaz Studio which uses layers similar to PS. You have a regular mask, color, and luminosity, and can invert the mask (which will select the dark areas) or modify with the brush, radial, and grad tools.

 

[myotisone]

Is there a free plug-in available that I can use to learn the gist of Luminosity Masks? My internet searching hasn't yielded anything. Also, if anyone has a favorite YouTube link for learning them...let me know.

Thanks!

I've just googled "luminosity masks photoshop" and come across hundreds of tutorials on making luminosity masks without a plugin, as well as using plugins.

Including this one from Greg Benz, that explains how to use them along with a link to a free version of his full Lumenzia plugin. It was sixth in the search

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gregbenzphotography.com

Early on I ended up buying a couple of the plugins, including Lumenzia so I haven't actually used the free version.

I guess you were using the wrong search terms.

"making luminosity masks photoshop" yielded a different set of relevant links.

If you only want youtube, then

"making luminosity masks photoshop youtube" gives lots of links, and those that do show up suggests that "creating" is the preferred term over "making" so another search with this term changed might yield better results

That said, it's obviously better to get a direct link to tutorial that someone already knows is a good one, for that I can't help you, as its years since I watched any introductory videos, but the searches above provide lots to be going on with, if no one comes up with a more definitive suggestion.

Sorry for the lesson on googling, but being aware of thousands of tutorials being around on making luminosity masks, I was little surprised you couldn't find anything.

Cheers,

Graham

 

[Ernie Misner]

Is there a free plug-in available that I can use to learn the gist of Luminosity Masks? My internet searching hasn't yielded anything. Also, if anyone has a favorite YouTube link for learning them...let me know.

Thanks!

I've just googled "luminosity masks photoshop" and come across hundreds of tutorials on making luminosity masks without a plugin, as well as using plugins.

Including this one from Greg Benz, that explains how to use them along with a link to a free version of his full Lumenzia plugin. It was sixth in the search

https://gregbenzphotography.com/luminosity-masking-tutorial/

Early on I ended up buying a couple of the plugins, including Lumenzia so I haven't actually used the free version.

I guess you were using the wrong search terms.

"making luminosity masks photoshop" yielded a different set of relevant links.

If you only want youtube, then

"making luminosity masks photoshop youtube" gives lots of links, and those that do show up suggests that "creating" is the preferred term over "making" so another search with this term changed might yield better results

That said, it's obviously better to get a direct link to tutorial that someone already knows is a good one, for that I can't help you, as its years since I watched any introductory videos, but the searches above provide lots to be going on with, if no one comes up with a more definitive suggestion.

Sorry for the lesson on googling, but being aware of thousands of tutorials being around on making luminosity masks, I was little surprised you couldn't find anything.

Cheers,

Graham

You can also create basic luminosity masks in PS using Channels I think, right?

 

[Lemar]

Easy Panel is a good choice and free:

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www.shutterevolve.com

-- M.

 

[myotisone]

You can also create basic luminosity masks in PS using Channels I think, right?

Yes, but it's a bit tedious, plugins or actions make it a lot more straightforward, and both are (or were) readily available.

Some of the PS alternatives, I think have luminosity masks built in and there are other ways of selecting restricted tonal ranges, such as blendif.

But you will need some one with more expertise to explain the details

Cheers,

Graham

 

[Sailor Blue]

The two photographers pushing Luminosity Masking now are Greg Benz and Jimmy McIntyre. Both offer free LM actions or plug-ins for Photoshop and both offer paid add-ons for LM that have many features to make editing with LMs easy.

Greg Benz - Luminosity Masks Tutorial and Links

Jimmy McIntyre - Shutter…Evolve – Luminosity Masks, Digital Blending, HDR Tutorials for Landscape & Cityscape Photographers

Both Greg and Jimmy have a number of tutorial videos showing how to use their paid plug-ins and examples of how to use Luminosity Masking for various images.

 

[Hawkmooon]

Easy Panel is a good choice and free:

https://www.shutterevolve.com/photoshop-powerpack/

Thank you to everyone who replied. I'm giving Easy Panel a try. So far it works well to create masks....now I need to figure out what to do once I have the masks and how to blend them. Fortunately YouTube will be a lot of help here.

 

[Royi Avital]

As far as I know all, most of the solutions, if not all, are Panels with Scripts behind them and not Plug In's, which means you're stuck with Photoshop's capabilities and Math.

Fixel has a Plug In - Luminosity Mask - How Does It (Really) Work? (Also on Davide Barrnaca's Blog).

 

[Royi Avital]

As far as I know all, most of the solutions, if not all, are Panels with Scripts behind them and not Plug In's, which means you're stuck with Photoshop's capabilities and Math.

What is more capable than PS? Thanks.

I can think of few things.
The trivial one being if you're in 8 Bit Mode then calculations are quantized while in Plug In you can do it in higher accuracy (Like 32 Bit Floating Point).

 

[Royi Avital]

Fixel published the 2nd part - Luminosity Mask Done Right!

I think it addresses few of your questions.