Luminosity masks need to be fast and intuitive in order to become a standard tool for enhancing creativity. The video at the bottom of this page demonstrates these techniques. Adding them as layer masks on adjustment layers and painting through active luminosity selections are two common techniques, and the TK Lum-Mask plugin does both. There are many ways to use luminosity masks when developing images in Photoshop.

This feature provides visual feedback that Photoshop has an active selection even if it's too weak to generate selection borders or if the marching ants have been turned off. The plugin has help messages built into every button and users can customize when they appear: all the time or just while holding down on the 'ALT' key on Windows or the 'option' key on Mac.

It can also be conveniently tucked up above any standard Photoshop panel. The plugin was designed with a small footprint so the image area is not obscured when using it. Loading the mask as a selection, saving it as a channel, and applying it as a layer mask to any layer are also one-click choices. Curves, Levels, and Hue/Sat adjustment layers with the on-screen mask as the layer mask are handled with a single mouse click. Users always know which mask they last generated in order to quickly experiment with different masks. The plugin places a green outline around the button for the current mask displayed on-screen. The process for generating and deploying masks is easy and intuitive even for first-time users. There are no intermediate 8-bit selections. 16-bit images have 16-bit masks, and the bit depth is maintained throughout the process of generating and deploying masks. Mask bit depth matches that of the image.See masks up front to make intelligent choices about which one to use. The TK Lum-Mask plugin uses Photoshop's Layers panel to display masks on-screen at real-time speeds. Some of its useful and unique features are listed below.

The image shows the plugin's different interfaces. It works starting in Photoshop 2021 on both Windows and Mac computers (including Mac M1). This plugin is designed using Adobe's Unified Extensibility Platform (UXP) for plug-ins. The TK Lum-Mask plugin provides an easy way for photographers to start using luminosity masks.

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