Inspired by the great work of Tony Kuyper and Mark Lindsay plus the video tutorials by Sean Bagshaw, I’ve just posted this 14-minute tutorial on how to use my new free Photoshop actions to enhance the 1/4- and 3/4-tone portions of your images.
Download the free Photoshop Actions. (My Photoshop Actions for 1/4- and 3/4-tone masks are not compatible with current versions of Photoshop. Beside, the latest version of Tony Kuyper’s TKActions Panel includes a superior tool for generating these masks.)
Blogarithms 
Thanks Doug – great video too!
LikeLike
Thanks for this great tut, the very clear explanations, and the actions
LikeLike
I can’t seem to get the free action to download. I get a window of the data instead. Is there something special I need to do to get the action in a file?
LikeLike
Gary, you may need to right-click or ctrl-click on the link and select Save As…
LikeLike
Thank Doug great video and actions .they work a treat .Thanks for sharing.
LikeLike
Thank you that’s an awesome set of Photoshop actions. By the way, if anyone is stuck on how to install Photoshop actions, check out this guide: How to Use Photoshop Actions
Cheers and happy Photoshopping!
LikeLike
Hi Doug – I’m excited to use these, but when I “play” the action the first thing that happens is it asks me to “save selection”. I’m not really familiar with using actions, can you tell me what I’m doing wrong? I am using PS CC. Thank you!
LikeLike
Thank you for the clear description of the these actions Doug and what they do. In the video you mention you might tweak them some more, I was wondering if you have done so at this time. 🙂
LikeLike
Very unique set of actions, limiting scope to 1/4 and 3/4 tones. Brilliant execution. I am enjoying the challenge of reverse engineering them for learning purposes. Thank you for sharing. Much appreciated.
LikeLike
I’m finding quite a bit of info on generating the light and dark masks via layer intersection and inverting “light” alpha channels to create their “dark” counter-parts. No luck so far on selection “math” to generate 1/4 and 3/4 tones. Any help appreciated. Thanks…
LikeLike
Hi, Danny. The best thing to do is to go to Tony Kuyper’s website (see links in the main blog post). Tony has terrific write-ups on creating luminosity masks. And Tony’s panel now includes 1/4 and 3/4-tone masks that are better than mine.
LikeLike
Danny… What are you asking about when you say Math? Based on more specific luminance values? I have my own method that breaks the image down into specific luminance zones. The number of zones and tonal range within those zones is virtually limitless using this method. Makes it more specific than Tony’s intersect method which basically takes half of the luminance values of the previous channel. Does this sound like what you are trying to do? If so, let me know how to contact you.
LikeLike
Hey Doug,
Did you do the second part of the luminance tutorial?? In the comments from 2013, you said you were working on it but here is “part of it.”
Just wondering if its somewhere on your site, Im getting in to some advanced editing for Real Estate and this has been a help.
Andrew
LikeLike
Hi, Andrew. I ended up collaborating with Tony Kuyper and since his writeups are so much more thorough than mine, I suggest you check them out. Go to Tony’s website (see links in the main blog post). Tony has terrific write-ups on creating luminosity masks.
LikeLike
Great collection of actions! By the way, I hand-pick the best free Photoshop Actions from all over the web, from all different developers, and sort them into categories on my website!
I’ll be adding some of these Actions to my website, AcePhotoshopActions.com. Have a browse through our collection of: Free Photoshop Actions
Cheers and happy Photoshopping!!
LikeLike
Hi Doug, I am very impressed by your video tutorials on luminosity masks and have particularly enjoyed the one on ‘quarter and three-quarter mask’. The photograph simply lifts by quite a few notch.
However I am unable to down load your actions as the page cannot be found. Is there any place/site from where it will be possible to download your actions.
Will appreciate any help.
Thanks & Regards,
Samir Sinha
LikeLike
Samir, my Photoshop Actions for 1/4- and 3/4-tone masks are not compatible with current versions of Photoshop. Beside, the latest version of Tony Kuyper’s TKActions Panel includes a superior tool for generating these masks. http://goodlight.us/writing/actionspanel/panel.html
LikeLike
Hi Doug,
Would it be possible to download your 1/4 & 3/4 mask actions from any site since it appears that the link above is dead and gives a pop-up that the page cannot be found.
LikeLike