Sean Bagshaw has recorded an excellent set of videos entitled The Complete Guide to Luminosity Masks. The videos demonstrate how to use luminosity masks and many of the other techniques in the tutorials on this website. While I have been wanting to offer video instruction on these methods in response to customer requests, I’ve not had time to work on this project. When Sean Bagshaw mentioned that he was interested in making an in-depth series of video tutorials to match my written tutorials, I quickly accepted his offer. Sean was a teacher before he became a full-time photographer. He regularly teaches luminosity masking in his workshops and has produced an number of high-quality videos on Photoshop processing. This new series continues Sean’s classic style of conveying large amounts of information though concise dialog while demonstrating various procedures using actual images in Photoshop.

This is a very comprehensive set of videos.

• • Nearly 5 hours of video in 43 segments

• • MP4 format for compatibility with most video players

• • 1280 x 800-pixel video size to enhance viewability

• • Sample images to allow users to work along with the videos

• • Topics range from the basic construction of luminosity masks to their artistic application with different adjustment layers.

• • Advanced techniques are demonstrated including exposure blending and the luminosity mask triple play.

While the series covers almost all the information in my tutorials, several of the videos also offer Sean’s personal approach to using these techniques in order to help viewers consider new possibilities for their application. These videos will take some time to go through—they are quite thorough—and may require replaying certain segments and practicing on actual images. They are meant to provide a visual counterpart to my written tutorials, so if you are a “visual” learner, these videos are ideal to help you understand the written material and how apply these techniques to your images.

There are several sample videos from the series below. These stream from YouTube and were uploaded at a resolution of 720p HD to provide a sense for the quality of the recording and Sean’s presentation. When the video is playing, the cogwheel in the lower right corner of the viewer can be used to increase or decrease the video’s resolution depending on what your Internet connection speed can handle.