Lumenzia v11.6 is now available (as another free update) and includes a new ability to record the plugin’s activity as normal Photoshop actions (with PS v25.0+). This unlocks a wide range of ways you can automate or simplify your workflow, such as:

• Create an action to start your favorite dodge & burn method, load a luminosity selection, activate a brush with your preferred paint color, and activate the split screen so you can review both the image and mask as you dive right into dodging.
• Add a couple of solid fill layers with your chosen colors and apply lights and darks BlendIf from Lumenzia to color grade your image. Once the action is done, you can even use the slider in Lumenzia to refine the BlendIf to give yourself the flexibility to fine tune the results from your action.
• Create an action sequence which applies a Nik Color Efex Pro filter to add a warm glow and then uses Lumenzia isolate the effect to the highlights.
• Create an action sequence when creates a color preview based on red and adjusts the slider to specific limits to meet your need. The sliders are recordable.
• Batch process a series of images using luminosity masks.
• Record an action to create curves with all the zone masks and assign it to a shortcut key. (When you use modifier keys like <shift> to access special features like the zone masks, that will be saved in the action).
• Record an action such as creating a color preview targeting blues, an L2 selection, etc and assign it to a button on your Wacom tablet/pen or StreamDeck. (To set up buttons, you can assign keyboard shortcuts to the actions and then assign buttons on those tools to fire the required shortcut in PS, here’s an example for StreamDeck.)
• You could even set up a button to make your darks or lights preview incrementally lighter or dark, so you could create a Lights prevent and then click a few buttons to adjust to the optimal preview. (See the notes below on Recording Action Tools to do this.)

The possibilities are nearly endless. I’d love to hear comments below on the creative ways you end up using it.

To record Lumenzia activity as an action, all you need is to record actions normally (using PS v25.0 or later). When you use Lumenzia, it will create a new step in the action you’re recording. When you’re done, you’ll then be able to play it back using PS v25.0 or later. That’s it. You can even share your recorded actions with other Lumenzia users.

In addition to standard recording, there are some extra features in the “Recording Action Tools” (found under the flyout menu at top-right / Utilities). These popup tools include:

• The ability to slide the Lights / Darks precision slider up or down by 0.25 – 1.0 increments. This is helpful to make an action you can assign to a button or keyboard shortcut.
• Controls to help turn on the ability to record other tools in Photoshop – such as the paint brush, eraser and clone stamp. They also let you control whether your cursor position is recorded with absolute coordinates or as a relative position in the image (to make it easier to apply to other images which may have a different resolution or aspect ratio).
• And more. These tools are likely to be refined based on your feedback as to what would help make it easier for you to integrate Lumenzia into your own actions.
• Support information describing the Lumenzia action recording works in detail, as well as tips for those who may be new to recording actions.
• Note that this popup is “modeless” and can be left on screen while you work (it will not block your ability to do anything else in PS, just use it when you need and close it when you’re done).

Note: there are a couple of minor bugs in PS v25.0 currently which may affect some use of plugin actions. One prevents playback of PreBlend under some conditions and the other will render a given plugin action step useless if you double-click it. The PS v25.2 (note couple versions from now) appears to resolve both concerns. I recommend installing the PS beta if you need a faster fix (easy to do and has been pretty solid in my experience).

 

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