(contributed by Barry Thomas)
All tools in the Local editing group (Color Correction, Smoothing, Local Contrast and Texture Boost) work by applying their effects using one or more adjustment layers.
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Each adjustment layer operates independently of any other.
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The effect of multiple adjustment layers is cumulative.
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Adjustment layers apply an effect to the whole image unless the effect is constrained by one or more masks.
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There are four types of mask.
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Any adjustment layer can use any or all of the four types, but only one of each type of mask can be used in each adjustment layer.
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Parametric mask: Select pixels according to their Hue, Chromaticity and Lightness (independently), and/or according to their contrast wrt. the neighboring pixels.
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Color similarity mask: Select pixels accoring to how similar their color is to a reference color (expressed by Hue, Chromaticity and Lightness), using the CIE DeltaE 2000 metric.
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Area mask: Allows a number of user-drawn shapes to be applied which constrain the effect of the adjustment layer. The contrast, feather and blur of each area mask can be adjusted.
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Any number of shapes may be used.
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Shapes may be separate or overlapping.
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Overlapping shapes may be set to add (the shapes are added together to make one combined shape), subtract (one shape cuts a section from all shapes it overlaps) or intersect (the effect applies only to pixels covered by this and all other shapes).
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Brush mask: A mask is built from one or more brush strokes. Each stroke may be added using various settings. Other controls allow the adjustment of the style of all strokes.
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For each adjustment layer, the mask is computed as follows:
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compute a parametric mask
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compute a color similarity mask, independently from the mask 1.
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compute an area mask, independently from the mask 1 and 2. This is computed by combining the various shapes according to their mode, as follows:
- start from an empty mask
- for each shape in the list of shapes, from top to bottom:
- for each pixel in the image:
- if pixel inside shape: add to the mask if mode is ADD, subtract from the mask if mode is SUBTRACT
- if pixel not inside shape, and mode is INTERSETCT, then remove from the mask
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create an intermediate mask by intersecting 1, 2, and 3.
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process the brush mask as follows:
- if mode is INTERSECT, compute an independent brush mask, and intersect with 4.
- if mode is ADD, paint over (meaning add or erase, accoring to the brush mode) the mask computed in 4.
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finally, if "invert mask" is set, invert the whole mask (computed in 5).
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