Lumenzia: Luminosity Masking Panel for Photoshop

Lumenzia is a luminosity masking panel with four core functions: create masks, apply masks, refine masks, and finishing tools. Mask creation includes options to select by luminosity and saturation. Mask applications include creating a selection; shortcuts to create curve, HSL, and PhotoFilter adjustment layers (you can also create other types of adjustment layer such as levels or color balance by using the selections function); and the ability to replace the mask on any existing layer with a single click. Mask refinement tools include the ability to apply the mask to a specific part of the image or a specific color, as well as the ability to combine masks to make it easier to understand complex masks and save on clutter and file space. Finishing tools include a luminosity-mask capable dodge/burn tool, a creative vignette tool, and a sharpening tool (which uses a surface blur technique).

Lumenzia creates luminosity masks without using channels. This simplifies the workflow and enables more targeted masks that aren’t possible with a channels-based approach. For example, Lumenzia is optimized right out of the box to provide a better response to saturated colors (which tend not to be selected with a channels based approach). And you can tweak and customize the masks it creates in an infinite number of ways to get the best mask for your image. Lumenzia is written in JavaScript. That means that it has built-in intelligence and capabilities that vastly exceed the limits of action scripts in Photoshop. For example, every action in Lumenzia shows up as a single history state, so it’s easy to undo anything. It helps you keep track of your masks by naming the adjustment layers you create. It has the power to do complex math to enable options such as the “un-group” tool for combining group masks or the “zone picker” to select tones visually. And much more.

Lumenzia v10 requires Photoshop 2022 or later. Those running older versions of Photoshop (C6 or older versions of CC) may install Lumenzia v9, which comes in the same ZIP download as v10 (you can then update to v10 for free at anytime when you update to PS 2022). The key requirement is Photoshop, all versions of Lumenzia are supported on any Windows or Mac operating system which can run Photoshop.

Please note that Photoshop CS6 users will see a different interface from the CC version, but nearly all the same functionality (in many cases using modifier keys to access features in the CC interface, such as color modes).

Unfortunately, if you are using Photoshop CS5 or earlier, you will not be able to use Lumenzia (you may wish to try my free luminosity masking actions, which I haven’t tested, but I have heard work on older versions of Photoshop). If you wish to consider upgrading, recommend the Creative Cloud Photography Program, which offers both Photoshop, Lightroom, and more for only $9.99 a month. I find it to be a very good value for two of the best photo editing/organizing programs available - one Nikon D850 body, lens, and a laptop costs more than 50 years of Photoshop and Lightroom subscriptions.

There are some minor differences. In general, nearly all functionality is available in CS6 version of the panel. And CS6 users get the CC version of the panel as well, so you have full support for the CC panel if you decide to upgrade to Photoshop CC later.

The primary difference is in the appearance of the interface and the increased reliance on modifier keys in CS6. Limitations of the CS6 panel include:

Some features require use of modifier keys (such as holding <shift> to create BlendIf masks, <cmd> for color masks, or <alt> for "Not" masks, etc).
There are no sliders in CS6 (but the same adjustments and results may be made through the orange preview layers).
No "?" button (the same tutorials may be access through the "Tutorials button in CS6).
"PreBlend" does not work with a single exposure (as Camera RAW is not supported on CS6; however multi-image PreBlend is fully supported).
"Split" requires minor interaction from the user (but is supported and enables the same view).
"Live" masking and selection modes are not available (but the same results can be achieved without these modes).
The workflow for adding and subtracting masks is slightly different (but the results are the same). Intersecting masks are not supported on CS6.

As mentioned above, Lumenzia can do much more than what is possible with channel-based masks. There are essentially three types of masks in Lumenzia – replicas of my free channel-based masks (D2, LM1, etc), zone masks (a, b, c, 0, 1, 2, …), and advanced masks (vibrance/saturation, Diff, and Range). By default, the masks which replicate my free actions produce the same results for black and white images, but have been optimized to better select saturated colors (note that you can also get the same results for color images by holding the <ctrl> > or <cmd> key while applying these masks, which may be useful if you want to create more separation between whites and vibrant colors). Also, since Lumenzia runs in 32-bit and achieves its final result with fewer math steps, it produces less banding in the more extreme masks like L5. This can potentially enhance results (by minimizing risk of banding in adjustments of the sky, for example).

The zone, vibrance/saturation, Diff, and Range masks are not based on any channel-based approach. These are advanced masks that go beyond simple channel-based approaches. The zone masks use a completely unique approach. I have never been able to create channel-based masks that I feel adequately target specific tones. Lumenzia allows you to create very natural selections of specific tonal values. There is both a 5 and 11 zone system, to give you the freedom to be more or less specific in targeting a given tonal value. And if you use the “zone picker” tool, it will center the selection on your targeted tone to provide a more precise mask (ie, you can basically target any gray value from pure black to pure white).

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