TOOL SCHOOL
The power of Luminosity Masking
Get to grips with this Photoshop Channels trick and make use of our free actions
James Paterson
With over a decade as a writer and photographer behind him, James knows exactly which Photoshop and Lightroom tools and techniques matter most.
Luminosity masking is a powerful technique for selective tonal adjustments. It’s often favoured by landscape photographers because it offers a fine degree of control over the brightness of different tonal ranges. Essentially, Luminosity masking allows us to create selections of different areas of brightness. In our coastal scene here, it means we can target the bright areas of sky around the sun, or the dark groynes in the foreground, then enhance those areas with adjustments.