ARCPanel 2.1

Mask source is a base for all other masks. By default, Luminosity is used, but you can select other sources to generate, eg. Saturation masks

• Luminosity – regular luminosity mask
• R – luminosity mask for Red channel
• G – luminosity mask for Green channel
• B – luminosity mask for Blue channel
• Saturation – mask, applying to most saturated pixels of the image

Color mask is a part of source and build upon on already selected source options: Luminosity or Saturation.
Luminosity is used by default, meaning that colors will be selected based on their luminanse values. Selecting Saturation as the source will change color slider to select based on color saturation values.
After color mask is applied it itself becomes the Source and can be modified by any masks – that means that you can select a range of colors from the image based on their Saturation values and after that select brightest of them by clicking Lights-3 on Masks

• Color Picker – lets you pick a color from the image to build color mask
• Color Slider – click anywhere on the slider to select a range, drag handles to modify the range. Click Apply or Cancel to apply or cancel color mask.

Mask is generated based on selected source: Luminosity, Saturation or Color. If no source is selected – Luminosity is used.
Gradient provides a hint on which part of the image will be selected

• Darks 1-6 – generates masks for darks parts of the image
• Mids 1-6 – generates masks for midtones
• Lights 1-6 – generates masks for light parts of the image

Adams' Zones “slice” image into luminosity ranges, selecting only required part of the image for you
Zone is generated based on selected source. If no source is selected – Luminosity is used
Gradient provides a hint on which part of the image will be selected

• Zones 0-10 – generates Adam's zone masks

Refine lets you apply some changes to the generated mask
^{This section is bound to be expanded with more refinement tools}

• Levels – will invoke Layers dialog allowing to shift light balance of the mask
• Curves – will invoke Curvea dialog allowing to refine mask
• Invert – will invert the mask

Apply section lets to set generated mask on the desired layer

• Levels – creates a new Levels adjustment with generated mask set
• Curves – creates a new Curves adjustment with generated mask set
• Selection – sets generated mask as a selection
• To Layer – sets generated mask on the selected layer
• Adjustment Layer – lets you pick any Adjustment layer and set mask on it

• Clear – clears ARCPanel state, removing selections, channels and active masks
• Quick Blend – when activated, disables preview and directly applies selected mask on the selected layer. Very helpful when blending images together.
• Group with white mask – a button to quickly group layers with white mask applied
• Group with black mask – a button to quickly group layers with black mask applied
• Preview on hover – disables or enables preview on hover functionality

• Solar Curve – a special curve that makes it much easier to spot dust, scratches or issues with clone stamp on the image.

• Frequency Separation – helpful tool that lets you extract texture and modify it independently from other parts of the image.
  Main appliances: smoothening human skin, fixing lens flares, professional product retouching.
• Gaussian Blur gives more conventional results
• Surface Blur works good in portraits
• Median gives much better results and fine-tuning for product retouching.
• Every method will generate extra layers for quick re-touching of low and high frequencies and a hidden Texture Boost layer to simplify work with skin.
• Selecting "Mixer brush" checkbox will pre-select Mixer Brush after Frequency Separation is built.

Orton Effect is a very popular enhancement brining that magical glow to the pictures

• Orton Heavy – strong and visible Orton Effect
• Orton Soft – a softer version of Orton Effect
• Selecting Preserve Darks checkbox will also apply a special mask, that will exclude effect from darkest parts of the image to avoid underexposure.

Dodging and Burning is the main post-processing technique. Dodging is brightening, and Burning is darkening parts of the image.
Panel provides 5 Dodge&Burn techniques

• Grey Layers – the most used technique – two 50% grey layers with Overlay and Soft Light blending modes
• Curves – A bit emore advanced technique – 2 curves adjustment layers layered in Luminocity. Curves set the limit of dodge/burn to avoid clipping.
• Automatic – Good for portraits. Lets you select Blend-If ranges for lights and darks – this allowd to automatically update Dodge and Burn when underlying pictures changes