Lumenzia v2.0 is now available.  Despite what the name might suggest, this is another free update for all Lumenzia users (I just ran out of 1.x numbers after all the previous updates).  This release provides significant enhancements to some key features: selections and color masking.

The “Sel” button is still used to load previews as luminosity selections, but has some capabilities.  For users on Photoshop CC 2015 or later, the Sel button changes color to indicate selection status.  The Sel button turns green to indicate that there is an active selection (even if it wasn’t created with Lumenzia).  This is especially helpful when working with selections where marching ants are not visible to remind you that there is an active selection that will affect your work.

The Sel button can now also be used to save and load selections.  This is helpful for hair and sky selections, or other situations where you may need to use a selection multiple times.  Just click the button when you have an active selection, and you will be prompted to save it.  Or, click it when there is no active selection (nor luminosity mask preview), and you will be prompted to load or delete any previously saved selection.  The Sel button also turns red to indicate that there are saved selections.  Deleting selections once they are no longer needed will help reduce file size somewhat.  Saving simple selections such as lasso or quick select typically add 1-6% to the file size each, while complex luminosity masks typically add 2-33% to the file size for each saved selection.

The “Color” button has also been enhanced.  The previous functionality is still available as an “interactive” option, and has been optimized for better color selection.  Additionally, you can directly mask red, yellow, green, cyan, blue, and magenta colors.  This offers a a simple solution to isolate blue skies from yellow buildings, or other scenarios where different color objects have similar luminosity.

Please see the release notes for a full list of updates.