Saturation Masking

I grew up, photographically speaking, using black and white film as my media of choice. I’ve slogged through a lot of wet darkrooms, albeit primitive ones, set up in college dorms, mop closets, apartment kitchens and spare bathrooms. I’ve even set up a film processing station in the back of a Karmann Ghia, which is no mean feat if you know anything about the dimensions of the back seat of a Karmann Ghia. As a result, I tend to “see” image scenes as what we now know as the red channel in any of the pixel editing programs. In effect, I zero-in on tone and tend to look past color. This was less an aesthetic choice than a necessary one: I could do my own B&W processing and printing. I could not do the same with color and there has been no joy in photography for me if I could not control the complete result.

This background has always left me vaguely uncomfortable with color. My geek side demands that I be reasonably proficient with color management regimes…and I am. But I’ve rarely used any of the hue/saturation controls for more than basic color correction. The most adventurous I’ve been is to experiment with treating hue as I would treat B&W tones, as in this image. I almost never touch the saturation sliders in raw conversions.

Still, it well known that rich saturation is visually powerful, especially in the hands of a master. I look at the work of Alain Briot, Keith Laban, Aaron Falkenberg, and Jim Kazan, to name just a few, and know I’d be an idiot to not acknowledge the stunning impact that color can have. So I’ve set a long-term objective to do more with color than I have in the past.

Which is a long way of getting to my point. Tony Kuyper, who authored the tutorial on luminosity masks, has a new tutorial on using saturation masks to optimize images.

While I’ve just read his e-book on the subject and tested saturation and vibrancy masks with but a few images, the creative potential seems to me to be huge. I particularly like Tony’s approach vis-à-vis achieving balanced saturation: rescuing over-saturated elements while adding vibrancy to under-saturated elements. Here’s one example: the left side is the original. The right uses both saturation and vibrancy masks to rebalance saturation.

The adjusted version brings down red saturation in the gas tank and adds color depth to the comparatively unsaturated water. While I may not have struck the right balance in this example, it’s clear that these tools can be useful, especially with soft proofing.

But, read the tutorial and judge for yourself.