A Complex Selection Using Both Colour and Luminosity

Sometimes a selection is more than a simple matter of surrounding, painting and refining. This is an example of how you can use the Black and White adjustment to initiate a complex colour-based selection (sometimes this is all you need), then using Curves to push remaining areas to black or white, plus a masked Fill layer to include the remaining areas into the black-and-white grayscale layer which you can then convert to a mask.
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[@ianwatson3393]

Intriguing and useful. Thanks.

[@Keith12001]

Very good tips, thanks for sharing

[@rickyperez2066]

This is really fantastic, thanks.

[@bruceatkinson932]

Brilliant!

[@nostaticatall]

Excellent.

[@untieduniversitylearning1799]

Dave, You have really succeeded in making the complex simple-astonishing and useful for so many people.

[@inputstudio2011]

You sir, are a gem!
This is a great solution and its a 7 minute video that fells like a minute or so!
thanks for your time doing this wonderful explanation.

[@gossedejong9248]

brilliant, as always, we can't thank you enough!!

[@WeiChong]

Cool. Such a simple way to mask a complex selections. Thanks much!

[@ptst19]

Interesting

[@bobcat_the_Lion]

A very good method for complex masks. At the moment you mentioned black/white I had an idea in which direction it was going. Still you did it different ;-)

[@chrisbartlett8146]

Brilliant Best luminosity solution I have seen. I inverted the mask and used it for a sky replacement on an equally complex scene with great results. I did have to go back to the video a few times as I had missed a step or two but very quick and effective once you have the procedure correct.

[@garygardens]

I watched this video several times and tried to duplicate on my own but just can't seem to do it. I may be missing a step for some reason. Can you lead me to more information on this procedure? Thanks very much and I'm really enjoying your videos, they explain things quite well.

[@phlotographer]

and now Serif has to do is with the new version of AP whenever it comes out is to make the whole process Ai sky replacement like Luminar and all that work can be done basically with a click. Good info as usual Dave.

[@inaffinityforaffinityphoto3220]

I wonder if Luminar would cope with this scenario where holes through trees are far from the top.

[@phlotographer]

@@inaffinityforaffinityphoto3220 from ones I have viewed from creators of Ai content it seems to do a pretty good job. I am looking forward to seeing what NEO will do in addition and hopefully improve LAi. BTW -- anyone or you Dave have anything new related to V2 from Serif for AP? I am always amazed at all the things you and Olivio can do with AP.

[@johndeans8930]

Thanks Dave for another interesting tutorial, can you show us how you could use this method to replace a sky through trees

[@inaffinityforaffinityphoto3220]

All you do is to put the mask layer as a child to the pixel layer (or put it at the top and group the mask and pixel layer), then put a new sky layer at the bottom and adjust this with the Move tool.

[@chrisjames9710]

Thanks Dave, I can definitely use this method. Can you add another adjustment to the same mask, or just duplicate the mask and make a second adjustment to that?

[@inaffinityforaffinityphoto3220]

Yes you can edit a mask (alt-click it to see what's there, then click the pixel layer icon to go back to normal). You can also stack masks.