Should the Color Filter use a mask?

[photoken]

I'm asking this to see what the opinions are about this.

As it is, the Color Filter affects the entire layer, ignoring any mask (if present). I'm wondering if it would be useful for the Color Filter to only affect the area allowed by an existing lasso (mask).

It might not be very useful when the Color Filter is applied to an image layer, but might come in handy when applied to an adjustment layer. For example, a Curves adjustment layer can be set to various blending "modes" such as Multiply, Darken, etc., and having the Color Filter act as a "Blending Options" tool on only the selected area could add some precision.

[Herbert123]

Btw, I never realized we could use the color filter on an adjustment layer in Photoline! Photoshop does not allow for this, which probably explains why I never tested it.

That's truly useful - impressive even. Thanks for this post.

Photoken: I can combine the color filter with an adjustment layer and the color filter. They both combine nicely. If you want to limit to a selected area, you could add a second mask layer to the adjustment layer based on a selection. Is that what you mean?

[photoken]

Btw, I never realized we could use the color filter on an adjustment layer in Photoline!...That's truly useful - impressive even.

I agree. It can come in handy, especially with backgrounds. Here's a quick experiment I did:
The original background is a single colour:

Jane Fonda 014.jpg

I masked the background and added a Curves adjustment, using the Lab space to set the background to blue. Changing the blending mode of the Curves adjustment layer to "Exclusion" and setting its Color Filter to only affect the lighter areas of the background:

jane fonda colour filter.png

gives a nice two-colour blended background:

Jane Fonda 014 b.jpg

If you want to limit to a selected area, you could add a second mask layer to the adjustment layer based on a selection. Is that what you mean?

Yes. It's only within the last couple of days that I finally understood what the Color Filter does (it's the equivalent of Photoshop's "General Blending Options"), and I was wondering how more experienced users of the filter use it.

Theoretically, I think that the Color Filter should affect only the selected area, but from a practical standpoint it's probably not necessary since the adjustment layer will be masked, anyway.

[Herbert123]

In all fairness, Photoshop Color adjustment layers also do support this type of blending - but Photoshop seems to be missing this convenient option for filter layers applied to smart objects.

Which demonstrates once again that the smart object workflow is something bolted on top of Photoshop's legacy code. Photoline's layer system really does hold together much better in my opinion.