ARCPanel Pro

ARCPanel Pro is a one-time purchase that turns ARCPanel 3.0 into a professional processing suite. Everyone who have purchased ARCPanel before automatically gets ARCPanel Pro.

Activation

After making a purchase you will get 3 licensing keys for ARCPanel 3.0 via email. One key activates one copy of ARCPanel. Right-click anywhere on the panel to get to settings and activation.

If you no longer want to use ARCPanel on the computer, you need to deactivate the license in settings.

That's it, it's that simple. Just don't forget to deactivate your license when you no longer need it.

You can always find your licensing keys in Members Area or in the email. Send me a message if you still didn't get your ARCPanel 3.0 licensing keys.

Quick Actions

Most of Quick Actions are only available in ARCPanel Pro.

Clear

Preview:

Quick Apply (Coming soon)

When blending multiple exposures there is often the need to quickly click through masks and see which one works best.

Quick Apply turns on the mode when clicking on a mask instantly applies it to a selected layer replacing whatever mask was set there before.

It allows to click through masks and pick the one required much faster.

Group shortcuts (Coming soon)

Grouping layers is a very powerful tool when processing images. Combined with masks, they are essential for high quality processing.

Group shortcuts simplify one of the most used function for layer grouping:

• Group with white mask – quickly groups layers and applies white mask
• Group with dark mask – quickly groups layers and applies black mask

Infinite Color

One click on Infinite Color button generates a random color grading preset that can be manually adjusted. Keep clicking until you find a pleasing color combination and then tailor it to your needs. Feature works best for city and portrait images allowing to quickly get to film-like colors.

More details in this article. You can also learn more about color grading in general in this article.

Image on the video provided by Tellisman Svitozar

Preview on Hover

ARCPanel is fast when building masks, so there is no need to click on buttons if you don't want to.

Enabling Preview On Hover will be previewing you masks while you hover over buttons. Clicking will select the mask and enable it for refinement. Preview keeps working even when you select a different Source, like Saturation.

Any range color masks

SOURCE

Luminosity

R

G

B

Saturation

Color masking is a powerful tool that lets you select any range of colors. Unlike in built-in Color Range tool that limits you to one color, any color ranges are supported. Colors are calculated based on already selected source options: Luminosity or Saturation.

Luminosity is used by default, meaning that colors will be selected based on their luminance 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 Build Maks or Cancel to apply or cancel color mask.
• Feather and Boost - move Feather and Boost sliders to better control the selection.

Any range lumi masks (experimental)

MASKS & ZONES

Darks

Lights

Darks ¹

Mids ¹

Lights ¹

Darks ²

Mids ²

Lights ²

Darks ³

Mids ³

Lights ³

D ⁴

Mids ⁴

L ⁴

D ⁵

Mids ⁵

L ⁵

Luminosity is a spectrum that is not limited to Lights 1-5 and other ranges. Any range lumi masks brings flexibility into luminosity mask creation allowing to pick the mask you need by just moving a slider.

Functionality is very similar to what Range Masks that Lightroom offers, but in Photoshop, with the availability of layers, this gives a completely different level of flexibility.

Please note that functionality is experimental, masks might not match tranditional luminosity masks exactly. I am very interested in whether you like this feature and if anything should be improved.

• Range picker - lets you pick a luminosity from the image and slider will auto select correct values
• Lumi slider - controlling two sliders, select any range you want. Having right-most slider fully on the right will give lights. Having left-most slider fully on the left will give darks masks. Having two sliders in the middle will give midtones selections.
• Feather and Boost - move Feather and Boost sliders to better control the selection.

ARCRetouch

Advanced retouching tools for your needs.

Solar Curve

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

Frequency Separation

Frequency Separation is a 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.

Orton Effect

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

Orton Heavy before/after

Orton Soft before/after

Dodge & Burn (Coming soon)

Dodging and Burning is the main post-processing technique. Dodging is brightening, and Burning is darkening parts of the image.

Panel provides 3 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 Luminosity. 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 allows to automatically update Dodge and Burn when underlying pictures changes