Note: This document has been updated as of November 10, 2019.

Lumenzia Basics

Lumenzia is designed to make luminosity masking as simple as possible.

However, different users have different needs. Therefore, a separate panel
called “Lumenzia Basics” (just labeled as “Basics” in Photoshop) is included
to offer additional luminosity masking tools. This panel is primarily
intended for users who prefer buttons over Photoshop shortcut keys and
for new users unfamiliar with certain tools commonly used with
luminosity masking. However, it also offers some very rich functionality on its own (such as the ability to
use content-aware fill on Smart Objects).

As a separate panel, Lumenzia Basics can be setup any way you like: expanded alongside Lumenzia to see
everything at once, tabbed or docked for easy access only when needed, or hidden/uninstalled
altogether.

Isolate (eyeball icon)

Click this icon to view the pixel content of the selected layer, without any distractions (BlendIf, masks,
other layers, opacity, etc). Click again to clear the layer preview.

Show Mask
Shows the layer mask full screen. This is a very helpful visualization when manually painting on a mask
to refine it. Can also be used to visualize BlendIf or Smart Filter masks.

<shift>-click "Show Mask" to set a custom overlay color.

X
Enable/disable selected layer's mask(s). This is helpful to quickly determine the potential to further
reveal more of the layer.

--- (Burn)
Activates the burn tool (a selective paintbrush) with settings optimized to darken areas of a mask which
are partially selected but which you wish to exclude from the mask (it makes dark gray pixels turn black).
This is often helpful to protect transition areas you wish to remain unchanged. The burn brush is
selective, so it has little to no effect on highly selected areas of the mask (the highlights). Hold
<alt/option> while clicking on “---” to use more aggressive tool settings that will allow the brush to
darken more quickly, as well as allowing the brush to have an effect on lighter midtones.

Black/Gray/White (paint swatches)

Click these color swatches to quickly activate a brush with optimized settings and set the foreground
color. This is very helpful for both refining masks and dodging and burning.
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+++ (Dodge)
The opposite effect of the Burn tool. It allows you to increase the selection of partially selected areas of
the mask (make light gray pixels turn white). This is often helpful in areas where layer blending results
in loss of contrast (such as partially selected clouds when blending exposures).

Deselect
If there is no active selection, the last action selection will be re-selected.

Ants
Show/hide marching ants for active selection.

Invert
Inverts active selection or selected layer's mask. Prompts with options if both are available.

Modify
Use this to quickly expand, contract, or feather the active selection. Use negative radius value to contract.
This feature is handy for revising selections made with the Quick Select tool.

Fill [updated in v8]

Fill a selection with black, white, or Content Aware Fill. You will be be asked if you would like to modify
the selection slightly, which is great for:
• Filling in a mask with white (just use Quick Select to create a rough selection, and then use this Fill
button to fill the selection with a few pixels of adjustment to avoid the edge).
• Avoiding edge effects with Content Aware Fill.

You may target Smart Objects for “Fill”. When you do so, a new pixel layer will be created (the Smart
Object will be unchanged).

If there is no active selection, “Fill” will instead select and fill any transparent pixels (which is helpful for
fixing incomplete edges of panorama stitches).

Video tutorial: Content-Aware on a Smart Object & panorama.

Clip
Create or release clipping mask for selected layer(s). Clipping masks cause a layer to only be applied to
areas that are in the layer below. For example, if you clip a solid red layer to a text layer beneath, only the
words will turn red, the rest of the image will be unchanged. Clicking “clip” on layer(s) that is/are
already clipped will release the clipping mask.

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Stamp
Stamp visible layers (ie, create a new layer that merges all layers).

If a Lumenzia preview is active (the orange temporary layers), that preview will be converted to a pixel
layer (“Luminosity Layer”).

Hold <cmd/ctrl> to automatically set the new luminosity layer to the luminosity blend mode. This may
be useful for creative effects.

Hold <alt/option> to flatten all layers. This is helpful before color conversion for output to print or web
(but be sure to do this with a duplicate copy, not your working file).

SmartObj [updated in v8.1]

This button performs many tasks:
• If multiple layers are selected or the selected layer is not a smart object: Convert selected layer(s)
to a smart object. Smart objects provide a non-destructive way to apply filters (ie, you can revise
the filter settings later).
• If a single smart object is selected, you may either extract the contents (ie, replace the smart
object with its contents), or rasterize it (convert it to static pixels to save space).
• Create an independent copy of the selected Smart Object (this is helpful for quickly multi-
processing a RAW Smart Object. This may also be done by <shift>-clicking “PreBlend” in the main
Lumenzia panel.
• Apply “Stack Modes”. This is a useful shortcut for combining multiple images shot on a tripod for
removing moving distractions (such as tourists or birds) via median stack mode, or reducing noise
via mean stack mode.

RAW (requires Photoshop CC)

Apply the Camera RAW filter.

This may be applied to layer masks as well, giving you more ways to revise your luminosity masks.

Verticals
This tool is used to get true verticals by correcting the “keystone” effect that commonly occurs when
shooting with the camera pointing up or down (this is particularly common with architectural images
where sloping verticals are more obvious). This tool may be used to correct verticals on both sides of the
image, or just one (which may be preferable to keep image detail if the crooked lines are primarily on one
side of the image).

Tips:
• It is recommended to level the horizon before using this tool.
• While resizing, click and drag from the ruler on the left side to drag out a vertical guide. This is a
very handy way to determine true vertical.
• Note that due to the way that some versions of Photoshop handles scripts, you may not see resizing
handles around the image (which makes it appear as if nothing is happening). You will know that

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 you are hovering over a resizing handle when the cursor turns to a white arrow (just hover around
the top corners to see this), then click and drag to start resizing. The resizing handles will also
appear after dragging out a ruler or when working with smart objects.

Blend Modes (Normal, Light, Dark, …, <<, >>)

These labeled buttons (“normal”, “Ligt”, etc) simply offer a quick way to apply layer blend modes to the
selected layer. Double-click a blend mode to return to normal blend mode (ie, if the layer is already in
"overlay", clicking overlay again will revert to normal.) The labeled modes are suggested for the
following:
• Normal: No blend mode (note that groups will be set to “pass through” as their default)
• Light (Lighten): This is useful for blending an extra frame with artificial lights, adding a sunburst,
etc. [Not available in LAB mode]
• Dark (Darken): This is useful for “window pulls” in real estate (shoot an extra frame with a lower
ambient exposure and flash to increase the interior exposure, then blend that layer in darken
mode and the darker exterior will be revealed instead of the blown out exterior in the brighter
frame). [Not available in LAB mode]
• Col (Color): This is an ideal way to affect color without affecting luminosity.
• Lum (Luminosity): This is an ideal way to avoid color shifts.
• Diff (Difference): This is an ideal way to manually check for layer alignment, as mis-aligned edges
will stand out in difference mode. Properly aligned images should look relatively dark/black
(especially at the edges) in difference blend mode. [Not available in LAB mode]

The << and >> buttons allow you to experiment with other blend modes. These include blend modes
which are generally not easy to predict, and therefore are easier to apply by quickly cycling through the
options. They generally affect contrast and color. Not all blend modes are available, just ones which are
typically useful for photography. The blend modes are sorted in order of visual effect (based on my
testing), and do not reflect the order they are normally listed in Photoshop’s dropdown menu.