Returning Photoshop’s luminosity mask keyboard shortcut
Comments: 5
I was trying to play around with a method of combining photographs to create so-called high dynamic range images in Photoshop that required the creation of a luminosity mask. To create one of these masks, you use the keyboard short cut Cmd-opt-` (also known as Cmd-opt-~ and on Windows as Ctrl-alt-~)*.
But the keyboard shortcut wasn’t working, and no matter how hard I thumped that combination, I couldn’t get a luminosity mask. Finally it occured to me to check for conflicts in System Preferences: Keyboard & Mouse: Keyboard Shortcuts, and sure enough there was one. Cmd-opt-` is used for “Move focus to the window drawer”. You need to turn that off if you want luminosity masks in Photoshop.
I’d like to see a big fat button added to this system preference pane called something like “Don’t stop anything else from working, godammit” but that’s probably asking too much.
* Type nerd rant: you’ll see this shortcut called “Command option tilde” but what’s commonly referred to as a tilde here isn’t one at all. When it sits in the middle of the line by itself — ~ — it’s the much more alluringly-named swung dash. A tilde appears above an n in Spanish to indicate what the dictionary informs me is a palatalised sound (piñata) or above a or o in Portuguese to indicate nasality. Knowing this won’t change anything, however, because “Command, option, swung dash” just sounds silly.
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Posted to Computers • 2006.03.10 (Fri) • 21:56
Comments
Posted by Newfred 2006.03.11, 00:57
Well, you won me over. As of today I’m going to call it a ‘swung dash’ to all my friends and family, undoubtedly reinforcing my reputation as a self-absorbed obscurantist. But what the hey. I’m all for it. In fact, this comes close to replacing my old hyphen-em dash-en dash conversation as a favourite.
Posted by cboone 2006.03.14, 00:56
Ah, that’s fantastic. I’ll never say tilde needlessly again…
Posted by Jim Bass 2006.03.18, 01:17
Something even better for selecting highlights is a free script from Glenn Mitchell called the Professional Mask Toolkit.
It lets you do sophisticated selections, not just of highlights but also midtones, colors etc. His site is a goldmine of goodies. The Toolkit is just out and in alpha. You might have to poke around his site to find it.
His sharpening tool kit is great, too.
Posted by Jim O'Connell 2006.05.01, 22:47
I always called the tilde or swung dash a “twiddle.” I think it’s an old-fart programmer thing…
Posted by Nicole 2006.09.21, 06:18
Perfect! I just learned about this luminosity mask thing but couldn’t get it to work until reading this.
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