Thank you both for your concern.
> Again not 100% sure but if you mask the blown areas in Quick mask it becomes an alpha channel then you should be able to cmd + J to a new layer?
To handle problems one at a time, I have now made a copy of the image without the luminosity mask and adjustment layers.
Now if I select the highlights, change into Quick Mask mode, leave the default choice of Color Indicates: Masked Areas, set the color to black and the opacity to 100%, I can see what I had intended. But when I then press cmd-J, a new layer is created, but it seems to be a dup of the Background. No selection nor mask is visible neither in the Background nor the new layer, neither viewed one at a time nor both. When the new layer is selected in the palette, the thumbnail icon has the dashed border, I don't recall and can not retrieve on the fly what that means.
When I delete the new layer, the Background has lost the selection, and in the Select menu, Color Range is dimmed!
When I close the image, save changes, and re-open it, the Background is the Quick Mask! Meaning I see a 1-bit b/w image. The original image is lost!
Looks to me like PS has swapped the Background and the new layer.
Is this intended behavior??
>
1) load the file into PS
2) make the selection any way you like
3) go to the layer tool window and at the bottom there is an icon to create a new adjustment layer, click that icon
4) select the type of adjustment layer you would like to create
5) you have now the dialog of the adjustment choosen, do adjustement and click OK
>
Yes I can make that work.
But before I make (curve) adjustments, I want to change the mask: paint in it to expand the masked areas (most of the sky in the areas other than the one between the rock wall at left and the leftmost tree in the middle ground; then invert the selection for the area that is left, so that the 2 fade trees in the background and their branches are selected and the sky in this area de-selected; and then apply a darkening tone curve which in this way will only act on the 2 trees in the background and their branches; which may to some degree cure the overblown look of these branches, darken these 2 trees and leave the sky blown (to preserve the sparkle; the sky is blown, there is no rescue).
So I need to have the mask in the whole image size to paint in it.
This passage from your link, stamper, did the trick:
"If instead you Alt/Option-click on the mask rectangle [of the adjustment layer] you will be able to see the mask in black and white in the main window in place of the image itself."
Bingo!
I'm sure this is to be read in the book, but...
Now the only thing I lack is the command to invert the mask or the selection. I think I have seen something like this somewhere, but can not retrieve it now.
And the mystique behavior of the Quick Mask might also be nice to have cleared up, even though I do not seem to need it right now.
BTW the 2 branches of PS showing in the Context Menu refer to version 10.0 and 10.0.1 respectively. But they should be merged into 1 PS, shouldn't they?
Thanks again! - Hening.