Photography podcast #124 features an interview with Arizona fine art photographer Tony Kuyper. After years of experimentation Tony has developed an intermediate post processing technique NOT based on the pixels that make up the image but rather the brightness levels or tones that make up the image. One of the game changing reasons to work in this way is the tonal control and level of precision you can achieve with your selections and the fact that these selections are naturally perfectly feathered. This is accomplished by creating a luminosity mask (in Gimp, Photoshop Elements or Photoshop) and Tony describes how and why to do this in the podcast.
Although this is an intermediate level podcast, newer photographers might want to listen to get ideas for future study and post-processing play. Tony explains the concepts clearly!
Thanks to The Camera Store (The largest camera store in Calgary, Alberta, Canada) for sponsoring the Photography.ca podcast.
Here are some of Tony’s images processed with and without luminosity masks. You can see that the images processed with the masks ‘sing’ louder.
Links /resources mentioned in this podcast:
Luminosity masks — Tutorial on Tony’s site
Tony’s tutorials page
GIMP luminosity mask tutorial
Photography assignment on our forum — Space
Level 2 photography assignment on our forum — Diptychs
Illuminight — Photography exhibition by Marko Kulik
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Loved this podcast, Marko. While I haven’t put it to good use as yet, I am excited to give it a try and thank you very much for reminding everyone that these techniques work with free software such as Gimp. I will definitely be giving this stuff a try soon.
My pleasure Glenn! I hope MORE people look into this. Yes there is a time investment but OMG will it pay off exponentially on multiple levels if people spend a few hours on this.
I was introduced to Tony’s work while studying with a photographer in China last year. His actions are great for pulling out and the details in images. The Luminosity masks are wonderful addition to my post processing arsenal. I suggest investing in Sean Bagshaw’s video tutorials. Sean takes the mystery out of the working with Luminosity Masks. You need to be willing to invest many hours to get the most out of Tony’s actions. The action panel that you can install makes working with them a breeze!