Apply "seamless tones and colors" adjustments to entire layers, not just the masked portions

[gregbenz]

When using Edit / Auto-Blend Layers' "seamless tones and colors" option to help get different exposures to blend together, the corrections are only applied to the areas which are white in the layer mask for each given layer in the output. This assumes that the masking process is perfect, which is not always the case - and actually rare when using this tool for "focus stacking".

It would be greatly beneficial if "seamless tones and colors" were applied to the entire layer, which would then allow the user to adjust layer masks as needed to manually correct the final result - while maintaining consistent tones and colors across the blended edges.

[Noel Carboni]

I've encountered a similar problem with stitching panoramas, actually.  Given that the results are presented in layers with masks, it seems like one should be able to adjust the masks afterward to get a better result in some cases, but surprisingly one uncovers the mismatches due to only the unmasked pixels being subjected to the color matching/blending process. Computers get ever more powerful - I know I have a machine that could certainly do the task even if all the pixels were included in the matching process.

If Adobe is concerned about the extra time it would take, perhaps a checkbox or preference somewhere could be added that would allow the person who has a powerful system - or is willing to wait - to get a more blendable result, yet still get the job done quickly by default for those who would find the results fine without further processing.

I for one would like to be able to adjust the masks to occasionally fine tune the results of what are otherwise phenomenal auto-blending/stitching results.

-Noel Carboni