Luminance masks: target highlights, midtones, or shadows

A pin on the color wheel selects a color, but color alone can't separate a bright blue sky from a blue shadow — both sit on the same spot of the wheel. A lightness range adds the missing axis, narrowing a pin to a color only where it is bright, midtoned, or dark.

Scope a pin to a tonal band

1. Drop a pin. In the Color tab, click the color you want to adjust in the photo.

2. Open the pin menu. Right-click the pin. Under Lightness range, each zone row shows a small density ridge — the shape of where that pin's color falls across the tonal range — so you can check whether the color exists in a band before choosing it.

3. Pick a zone. Choose Full range, Highlights, Midtones, or Shadows. Hover a zone to preview the catch, then click to commit.

4. Verify with H. With the pin selected, hold H to see which pixels it affects — they show bright against a dimmed grayscale version of the photo.

When you hover a zone, the photo, the color cloud, and the Lightness strip under the wheel preview the catch together, so you can judge the selection before committing.

Isolate first, grade second

A common approach is to isolate a tonal band first, then grade. The Working range chips at the top-left of the wheel do that. Tap Highlights and the color cloud collapses to show only the colors that live in the highlights; a pin you drop there is scoped to that band from the start. Switch to Shadows, push a pin toward teal; switch back to Highlights, push another toward warm.

The Working range acts as a viewing lens and a stamp on new pins — it is not saved into your file — and it resets to Full range whenever you open a new photo.

One color, two tones

To grade two versions of the same color, scope one pin to Highlights, then use Duplicate pin and re-scope the copy to Shadows — same hue, two tonal bands, two independent moves.

When a preset zone isn't precise enough, hold Ctrl and drag a rectangle across the exact region on the photo. Tone Caliper fits a pin to those pixels' color, spread, and lightness band, and the pin menu marks the band as custom.

This is also how you keep an adjustment off a subject: scope your grade to a band the subject's tones are not in.

Protect a color

Any pin can act as a shield. Select the pin, right-click, and turn on Protect colors. The colors that pin covers are then held steady while your other pins grade around them — so a warm grade can sweep the whole frame without dragging a face, a product color, or a patch of sky along with it. It works on any color, not just skin.