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I'm not sure that's what I want. As I understand it that applies the luminosity of one layer to another. What I want to do is use the luminosity of one layer as the alpha of another (ie use the luminance to mask, as you can do in AE with luma mattes). Sorry if that wasn't clear.

Imagine I have a black and white image layer (A). I want to use A to mask another layer (B) such that where A is black, B is visible and where A is white, B is transparent (or vice versa).

I know I can effectively do this with layer masks / alpha channels. However, my workflow for this job (a digital illustration) would benefit if I could keep the masking layer (A) as an actual layer which I could edit non-destructively, similar to a clipping mask, and not relegate it to a channel.

Does that make sense?