Version 7 of the Lumenzia luminosity masking panel for Photoshop is now available as a free upgrade for all customers. This is the the most ambition update since v1, with over 160 new features, updates, and bug fixes in total. The major themes in v7 are speed and interactivity. It’s never been easier to create the perfect luminosity mask or selection to make beautiful photos. And the updates have been designed to avoid changing any existing workflows, so you can jump right in.
Lumenzia is also featured extensively in my Exposure Blending Master Course (and Lumenzia v7 can be purchased for 50% off when bundled with the course). None of the techniques taught in the course with v6 change now, but I am updating the course to highlight a few ways you might take advantage of new v7 capabilities.
New features in Lumenzia v7 include:
- Dynamic previews immediately update the preview as you click “Not” or any of the color swatches at the top of the panel.**
- The new Precision and Value Sliders to interactively adjust mask strength to be more specific or general. This seemingly simple controls allows you to customize masks extensively in a visual and intuitive manner. You can even adjust mask feathering without opening the Properties panel in Photoshop. **
- The precision slider also allows you to create intermediate masks (such as L1.5) and more specific masks (such as D7). **
- Fast previews. This dramatically speeds up the creation of the temporary orange and red layers under many common conditions (up to 4-8X faster on typical files, or up to 20X on extremely large files).
- The active luminosity selection lights up green so you can easily remember if you are working with L2 vs L3 or something else. **
- The non-destructive sponge has been completely resigned for speed, simplicity, and better results. It’s the easiest way to enhance or subdue color in your image. (As before, click “Dodge” to access the Sponge tool.) **
- Highlight blown or nearly blown highlights and shadows by <alt/option>-clicking “Map”.
- Load any gray or transparent dodge/burn layer as a selection, so that you can further refine your results (such as by applying a contrast curve to only the areas which were dodged and burned).
- And so much more (>160 enhancements total). See the release notes for a full list of all changes.
** Note for CS6 users: While v7 includes >100 enhancements for CS6, you will see that several new interface items which require CC (such as the sliders). This are unfortunately due to limitations of the nearly 7-year old CS6 platform. Differences are primarily in appearance or workflow. Functional capabilities generally remain nearly the same (the new color model is only available for CC however).
