More Luminance Masks!

[Neutronman]

I love the luminance mask feature in the ACDNR tool, but why is the luminance mask not available in other tools???  It would certainly cut down on a lot of mask creation.  Just curious.

[Nocturnal]

Actually I think the question should be reversed. Given how easy it is to create and manipulate an L mask, why have it integrated into ACDNR?

[Carlos Milovic]

I guess it is a remanent from SGBNR

[Nocturnal]

Actually I figured out a reason why the L mask in ACDNR is easier to use than generating an L mask separately. With the preview check box checked it's easy to see what will get protected with the current mask settings. Switching the RTP on and off allows you to blink between image and mask.

I think the answer is that we need an L-mask process with RTP and wavelet smoothing.

[Neutronman]

Well, I withdraw my wish 

I just discovered why masks make more sense than a dedicated lume mask tool a la ACDNR -- repeatability.  Having applied noise reduction to the extreme dim areas on an image, the dim areas have lightened. Now I want to use curves to pull these areas back down... oops.  Gotta create a mask, and it won't match exactly what I did with the ACDNR tool 

[Niall Saunders]

I tend to agree with Sander - a truly flexible masking system that operates independently of all Processes is likely to be more useful than a masking system that works 'quite well' inside a single Process.

For example, I have NEVER been able to use the Lum-mask inside HDRWT - I always now create a mask of my own and apply HDRWT through that mask.

Something for Juan to consider as future development perhaps . . .

Cheers,

[Harry page]

Hi

Here's one for you,  I like how you can make a luminance mask in ACDNR so here's what I do

1) Make a clone of the image you want to make a mask for
2) Open ACDNR and activate the real time preview and check the preview box
3) create a lum mask to you choice
4) Close the real time preview and leave the preview checked  as above and apply to your clone

And vola a mask you can use on your original image

Might be of help might not


Harry

[Nocturnal]

Hi Harry,

thanks for the reminder. I actually thought it was a bit of a bug that you could apply the L mask preview to the image but it does come in handy like you described.