How to · 5 min
Refine a mask with Luminance Range
Combine a spatial selection with the brightness of the image.
Sometimes a mask has the right shape but includes the wrong tones. Luminance Range lets you qualify that layer by brightness—for example, focusing a broad sky adjustment on the brighter areas while reducing its effect on dark trees.
The method
Step by step.
- Create and select a mask layer first. Establish its position and feather before narrowing the tonal range.
- Enable Luminance Range. Set Low and High to describe the tones you want to use.
- Start with Intersect when the correction should stay inside both the spatial mask and the luminance range.
- Use Soft to ease the tonal transition. Add expands the combination; Subtract removes the specified tonal coverage from it.
- Inspect high-contrast boundaries with and without the overlay. If you see an artificial edge, widen the range or soften the transition.
Keep this close
Control reference.
- Intersect
- Keep overlapping coverage.
- Add
- Combine coverage; it can extend beyond the original shape.
- Subtract
- Remove matching tonal coverage.
- Low / High / Soft
- Tone limits and transition softness.
Closer to the controls
See the settings, not a reconstruction.
This detail is cropped from the real application capture above. Click to enlarge, then choose actual pixels to inspect the labels and sliders.
At your own pace
Try it.
Hold back a bright sky while protecting darker branches. Begin broadly, then narrow the range only as far as the picture requires.
Watch for
Luminance is not object recognition. A bright car and a bright cloud can fall inside the same range.
Monochrome Lab Pro workflow guide. Interface details may evolve. Example settings are creative starting points, not automatic corrections.