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.
http://www.thelightsrightstudio.com/tutorials-pdf.htm
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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