Update (Feb 6, 2019): Lumenzia v7 is now available!
I’m excited to announce that version 4.0 of my Lumenzia luminosity masking panel is now available. This is the twelfth major update, and the biggest yet! It’s also a free upgrade for all Lumenzia customers. This update includes over 70 improvements, but I’m just going to focus on three in this post. Please see the release notes for a full list of new/updated features and bug fixes. And be sure to see the written manual and tutorial videos, as both have been updated and expanded significantly.
Add or Subtract Masks and Selections
One of the most requested features from advanced users has been the ability to combine masks, and I’m happy to announce that Lumenzia now lets you add and subtract masks and selections. Just click the + or – button to add or subtract the current luminosity mask preview or selection from the active layer mask. This makes it a snap to subtract D6 from D3 to improve contrast while boosting shadows. Or quickly lasso a portion of the mask to have it removed (or lasso something and remove everything around it).
Automatically blend exposures with the new BlendIf option in PreBlend
PreBlend was originally envisioned as a way to quickly get multiple exposures ready for blending. Now it helps you blend too by harnessing the power of Lumenzia’s BlendIf masks. This allows for incredibly quick blends, with live previews and smaller file sizes.
Manually blending exposures with layer masks and luminosity selections remains the best option in many situations for the highest possible quality, but this new BlendIf option offers a very quick way to get good results in many cases.
Non-destructive Sponge
Want to enhance some foliage or boost the sunlight falling on your subject? The sponge tool allows you to paint on more (or less) saturation in your image in an incredibly beautiful and natural way. And it’s created on a separate layer, so you can refine it later as needed.
More options to create custom luminosity masks
Lumenzia’s orange preview layers have always been designed to do to things: (1) Give you a live, full-screen preview of the actual mask you will use, and (2) Allow you to customize the preview to create exactly the mask you need.
Lumenzia v4 builds on that by adding a new option to paint directly on the mask. This is a great way to quickly eliminate unintended parts of the selection. You can even use this blank pixel layer to nudge gray pixels toward black or white (simply change the blank layer’s blend mode to overlay to dodge and burn with black or white). Jump to 8:15 in this next video if you wish to see just the new capability.
