# Value Module

Value — how light or dark something is, independent of colour — is the module most artists are told to start with, and it's the biggest one in Notana. Each viewer groups the photo's tones a different way so you can find the pattern that best matches how you plan to paint or draw it.

A few of these viewers (Highlights, Midtones, Shadows) share the same four helper switches, so they're explained once here rather than three times over:

- **Use Transparency** — instead of colouring the selected range, make everything else see-through, so only that value range shows against a checkerboard. Handy for isolating a range to study on its own.
- **Show Original Through** — flips which side of the mask is affected, showing the original photo inside the selected range instead of outside it.
- **Preserve Luminance** — keeps the natural light-to-dark gradation inside the highlighted range rather than flattening it to one flat tone. Leave this on for a more paintable result.
- **Invert Values** — colours everything *except* the selected range, useful for checking what's left once you set that range aside.

## Big Shape Notan

The classic two-or-three-mass light/dark study.

![Big Shape Notan applied to the reference photo at basic settings](examples/value-big-shape-notan.jpg)

*Big Shape Notan at its default settings (4 values, colour kept) — the light shaft, road, and car resolve into a handful of confident masses.*

- **Shape Size** — how big the simplified masses are. Bigger merges the whole scene into a few bold shapes; smaller keeps more of the original drawing.
- **Number of Values** — how many light-to-dark steps to read the scene as. Two gives you a pure dark-vs-light notan.
- **Shadow Detail** — higher keeps the dark masses separated from each other; lower lets them fuse into one connected shadow shape.
- **Black & White Notan** — switch on for a pure light-and-dark notan, or leave off to keep a hint of the original colour in each mass.

## Value Groupings

Finds the value groups that naturally exist in your photo, rather than you setting fixed thresholds.

- **Dark / Middle / Light Group Color** — pick the colour used to represent each of the three natural value groups Notana finds in your image.
- **Analysis Depth** — how thoroughly the image is scanned to find those groups. Higher is more precise but takes a little longer to process.

## Equal Thirds

Splits your image's tonal range into three even thirds — a common, simple starting breakdown.

- **Dark / Middle / Light Third Color** — the colour used for the darkest, middle, and brightest third of pixels in your photo.

## Shadows / Midtones / Highlights

Three separate viewers that each isolate one part of the tonal range — dark, middle, or light — so you can study it in isolation.

- **Range of Shadow / Midtones / Highlights** — slides the centre point of that tonal range earlier (darker) or later (lighter), so you can dial in exactly which part of the photo counts as "shadow," "midtone," or "highlight."
- **Shadow / Midtone / Highlight Color** — the tint used to mark that range; Notana picks a sensible starting colour by analysing your photo, and you can change it.
- Plus the four shared switches described above (Use Transparency, Show Original Through, Preserve Luminance, Invert Values).

## Tonal Peaks

Flags the small pockets of extreme light or dark that tend to read as focal points.

- **Dark / Middle / Light Tones Color** — the colour used to represent each detected tonal group.

## Painter's Massing

Groups values the way a painter blocks in big shapes before refining — simple, connected masses rather than pixel-accurate matching.

- **Number of Values** — how many light-to-dark steps to reduce the image to. Fewer reads as a bolder block-in.
- **Tighten Values** — pulls the brightest and darkest areas back toward the middle, like squinting at the scene, so the big value relationships read more clearly.
- **Shadow Detail** — higher keeps more separation inside the dark masses; lower lets shadows merge into simpler shapes.
- **Smooth Flat Areas** — calms busy texture inside the big shapes while leaving the strong edges crisp.
- **Keep Color** — on for a colour massing study, off for a pure light-and-dark value study.

## Clean Color Block

A value study that keeps a hint of the original colour in each block, so it still reads at a glance as "this photo," not just an abstract value map.

- **Color Smoothing** — how broadly colours blend into clean washes. The underlying light-and-dark drawing stays sharp no matter how high you push this.
- **Calm Harsh Colors** — tames jumpy, oversaturated colour speckle by pulling it toward its surroundings.
- **Number of Values** — how many light-to-dark steps the values are blocked into.
- **Color Richness** — dials colour intensity up or down without touching the values themselves.

## Value Study (combine your own)

A bonus viewer for layering Highlights, Midtones, and Shadows together on your own terms once you've dialled each in separately.

- **Add In Highlights / Midtones / Shadows** — choose which of the three ranges to include in the combined study.
- **Mixing Style** — how the layers combine: options range from gentle (Lighten, Subtle Glow) to bold (Add Light, Intense Light), plus a few that isolate colour or brightness on their own (Color Only, Brightness Only).
- **Transparency of Values** — how see-through each layer is when combined.

## How to use it

Every viewer has an intensity, range, or grouping slider — push it toward simpler and you get bigger, more confident value shapes; ease it back for a study closer to the original photo's subtlety. There's no "correct" setting; try a couple until you find the breakdown that matches what you're trying to learn from the reference.