What exactly is being selected with a luminosity mask or channel mask?

D
Posted By
dglaser
Jan 24, 2005
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289
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Closed
When you command/Ctrl click on a channel or the composite channel, or Command-Option-~ or Command-Option-2 – 4, etc. on a layer, a selection happens. But what IS this a selection of? It seems to related to the channels, because you can get the same selections by Command-clicking a channel.

But what is being selected?

A luminosity mask or selection happens when you Command-Option-~. This is supposed to be a selection of the highlights, which can be inverted to make a selection of the shadows. Are the midtones NOT being selected in either of these?

It seems like the selection is composed of all the pixels from 50% – 100% brightness value (RGB). Is that what is happening?
Thanks for any help. Dale
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T
tacitr
Jan 24, 2005
A luminosity mask or selection happens when you Command-Option-~. This is supposed to be a selection of the highlights, which can be inverted to make a selection of the shadows. Are the midtones NOT being selected in either of these?

The midtones are being partly selected.

The brighter a part of the image is, the more selected it is. The darker it is, the less selected it is. Areas of 50% luminosity are 50% selected.

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