Lightroom Masking - Editing just got a whole lot easier with this clever tool!

Today i'm going to show you the amazing new  tools adobe have just given us in lightroom   and these will really help speed up your workflow the recent update in lightroom is pretty big i  was going to do the photo critique video this   week but because these changes were a game changer  i just had to let you all know about these changes   so if you're waiting for the photo critic video  that's coming next thursday and if it's already   a week later it'll be linked in the corner and  in the description and if you're new here i do   photo tutorials critiques and on location shoots  everything to help you and your photography so be   sure to subscribe adobe have really overhauled the  top panel in lightroom in the library module and   it looks a little bit different to what it's been  like for a while some of the tools are fantastic   but it does take a bit of getting used to like  before there is the crop tool and this is very   similar as is the spot removal tool and then  there's the red eye removal tool as well then   we get onto the local adjustments which have  been combined into this one button and the   button is now called masking if you click on  this it gives you a lot of different options   before we had the linear graduated tool the radial  tool and the brush tool now we have those as well   as select subject and select sky and the range  tool has been brought up to this panel as well   it did used to live at the bottom of this drop  down panel and you had to go all the way down   to the bottom to find it this was one of my  annoyances so it's great that they brought   everything up to this top panel with all of  these tools there is a pop-up window next to this   it looks a little bit scrappy but i suppose they  didn't have anywhere else to put it but the good   thing with this is that it keeps everything  up here next to those local selection tools   so everything is in that top right hand corner now  for any of you that are worried about local edits   that you've done previously to this update don't  worry they will all be here in this new panel and   they won't have changed at all they will just sit  in this new layout but they'll be exactly the same   as where you left off it'll just ask you to save a  new catalogue for this new update when you do open   that catalog for the first time in this version  11. so you would in theory have the old catalog   and would be able to go back if needed but i think  once you get used to this you'll see the benefits   of being able to have a very detailed mask  selection and a very detailed way of doing those   local edits a mask selection adjustment layer or  whatever you want to call it is just an area where   you're going to make changes and you're specifying  what shape that area is with these tools to show   you what that shape looks like they have to give  you overlay options this isn't changing the image   to that color it's just showing you the shape of  the mask that will make the changes once you start   moving the sliders in the drop down menu on the  right hand side let's say you've taken a photo   but you want to bring down the exposure in the  sky originally in lightroom you would have had to   reduce the highlights so you'd have come down to  this bottom panel and pushed the highlights down   but then that would have reduced the highlights  in the whole photo then with the later versions   you paint in the sky with that brush tool or maybe  pull down a linear gradient tool and add a range   mask when that was added to lightroom now all you  have to do is click on select sky it might take a   while to process especially if you have an older  machine but once it's done its thing it will now   select the whole sky for you and it will detect  trees and other objects that protrude into the sky   as long as there is enough contrast between them  now i thought this one might confuse it a little   bit with the reflections but it actually did an  okay job when you do select it this panel will pop   up to the left of the histogram open it up with  the two chevrons if it isn't expanded already   and then here you can adjust your mask so you  can see it selected the sky i've got this red   overlay and i've got this show overlay ticked you  do have different overlays that you can select   so if you click on these three dots here it's on  color overlay at the moment but if you're used to   photoshop you can go white on black so as you can  see you have lots of different ways to show the   mask from the red mask that you might already be  familiar with from previous versions of lightroom   to the black and white looking mask like  in photoshop you just want to choose what   you like the best but it's great that they've  given us all of these different options also   with the color overlay if you click on the red  square you can change this to any color you want   when you do click on it it will come up with this  color chart with millions of variations of colors   as i've said i prefer the white on black overlay  but when using something like a radial filter you   can't see the image below so when i am doing  this i'll just switch back to the red overlay   so i can place the mask over the part of the  image that i want to now let's say you want to   select the land and not the sky you can actually  invert this mask and it will select the opposite   to the sky so very quickly you can build these  masks up you can have one mask for the sky and   then another mask for the land and then do local  adjustments on either of those parts separately   so i have the mask for the sky there now so what  i can do is click on these three tags and i go   duplicate mask one so i've got mask copy if i  click on this it gives this subsection to the   mask copy which is sky one if i then click on  these i click on invert and that is the land   so this first one is the ground the second one  is the sky remember when the mask is black and   white like this it'll change what is white it  won't change what is black when you don't have   any changes made it will show that overlay but  as soon as you've made changes in this drop down   panel it'll just show those changes and this is  quite good as well because before you could make   changes or you could make a mask for your image  and you wouldn't be able to see where it was   until you selected the overlay so i'll just show  you with this you can see that's changing the sky   obviously you wouldn't change it this much but i'm  just showing that that mask just changes that sky   and then if we go on to the other one which is  the ground again if i change that you can see it   changes the ground so i'd maybe increase  the shadows a little bit on the ground   and then increase the contrast and maybe increase  the texture as well then in the sky i'd probably   reduce the sharpness a little bit drop the  texture a little bit to make it a bit softer drop the highlights a bit  but then add some contrast   something like that but you can see it's a very  powerful tool to invert your mask you could go to   the subsection of the mask click on the three dots  and find it in that drop down menu or just select   the subsection and find it over here between the  tool strip and the adjustment sliders this is   the easiest way to invert the mask and i do use  this a lot i kept on clicking on the three dots   of the main mask layer and was wondering where it  was for a while it would be good if there was an   invert in that main mask so you could make lots  of changes and then invert the whole thing but   maybe that'll come in a future update this pop-up  panel will disappear if you click out of the app   but when you click back into lightroom it'll  reappear now the great thing with this and with   all of these masking tools is that you can add or  subtract to that mask so before you may have had a   gradient or a radial mask and then maybe wanted to  add a little bit more to that mask but then you'd   have to start again with a new brush tool mask and  try and match the two now you can build up that   mask bit by bit so here it selected the engine  on the back of the boat when i selected the sky   so this shot did confuse it a little bit but now i  can subtract from that mask and paint this area in   so if i click on that i click on subtract and  brush i'll make sure auto mask is checked and what   that does is just find the hard contrasty edges  so now what i can do is paint over this engine   just make the brush a bit bigger i'll do  a very scrappy quick selection but you can   see it's taking the mask off the engine or  the motor suppose it's an engine isn't it so now you can see in that sky mask i've got sky  one and brush one so it's labeled them differently   and then if you look at the brush one it's got  a minus figure next to it so it's subtracting   that from the mask so that's just a reference for  you so you know which one is being taken away and   which one's being added so if i hover my mouse  over the brush it'll just show me what's being   taken away and it'll highlight the brush icon here  also in these buttons as well as in that main drop   down menu you can find the range mask which used  to live at the bottom of that local adjustments   panel like i mentioned earlier so here you can  adjust what colors or levels of brightness will be   affected by the mask now the great thing with that  range mask is that it will give you an eyedropper   and you can click on the luminance or the color  that you want to be affected or you want to be   subtracted from that mask it's such a powerful  tool and you can build up to it and add to it   but it can get quite confusing as well if you  look what i've done now i've added to this sky   mask a luminance range and it's kind of selected  all of this here so it is very easy to get kind of   muddled up and to get confused a little bit with  it so i'm just going to delete that range mask   now because that just messed everything up now  i'll show you range masks a little bit later   on in the video so make sure to keep watching  next with select subject this does exactly that   as long as your subject is pronounced in the  frame it will do a fantastic job and sometimes   even if the boundaries aren't that good it'll  still do a really good job so i've clicked on   the new mask button and then select subject again  it takes a while to detect that subject but just   let it do its thing and it will do it really well  like before once you've selected it you can add   or subtract to and from that mask with any of the  other masks so i have this one of me you can see   it selected me really well even down here at the  bottom you can see the background is not selected   so it does an absolutely fantastic job so if i  just change it to white on black and if we zoom in   you can see it's really picked out the hairs  really well on my head now i have that mask   selected and let's say i want to subtract this  kiss logo off the front of my t-shirt what i   could do in theory if it was one solid  color let's click on subtract and then   color range and then select it however  because it fades from orange to yellow   it's a lot harder to do with this image so like  i've already done i'd select the brush tool   and then paint it out and as long as auto mask  was selected it would find the edges quite well   now if i change the mask i'll just do some extreme  changes you can see it's changing everything apart   from that color on that kiss and apart from the  background as well also if you want to select   just the background you can use this tool to  select your subject and then just invert the mask   and then your background is selected and then  you can edit the background and the subject   separately so you can see i've just inverted it  so the background is selected now now if i right   click on the mask and duplicate mask one that'll  give me mask one copy then i select that sub mask   click on the three dots and uncheck invert now  this first one is me and the second one is the   background so with the background i could maybe  darken it down a bit make it a bit more contrasty   deepen the shadows so you can see it's really  affecting that background and then with me i   think the highlights are a little bit too much so  i could knock the highlights down a bit add a bit   more contrast add a bit more texture maybe make  myself look really rough had a load of clarity   let's see what happens when we do this so if i  really wanted to i could make myself look really   grungy and just chuck the clarity and texture  all the way to the right without affecting that   background whatsoever and you can switch between  the two then so i'm back onto the background   maybe i wanted to make the background black and  white you could do that as well so you really have   a lot of options here that looks pretty horrendous  but you can see the power of what you can do with   these masks if you've made changes to the mask but  you don't know how it's affecting your image just   click on the eye icon this is very much like in  photoshop when the eye has a strike line through   it it will hide the mask and when it's just the  eye it's visible this is very good because you   can click between the two seeing how much or how  little you've changed the actual finished image   if you haven't made any changes to the mask it  will just show the mask color overlay whichever   overlay option you've selected also it doesn't  just have to be a portrait if i select this   next one which is this boat i can then use this  select subject to isolate the boat and then change   the color of the boat i can make it more or less  contrasty you can do whatever i want to that boat   so you can see the mask is over the boat now so i  can increase or decrease the exposure of that boat   if i come down here to hugh you can  see i can change it to a green boat   a purple boat or a pink boat or a red boat and i  keep saying it but there is so much that you can   do with this tool you can really isolate parts of  your photograph and again i can duplicate the mask   and then invert it and then just change the color  or change the look of the c in the background   with range masking before you'd have to use it  within one of the three older masks but now it   can be a standalone mask for example if we look  at this image it's a drone shot i took one morning   over the south of the island of phuket i edited  this in the older version of lightroom and i was a   bit lazy when it came to my gradient selection but  that gradient selection is still there and it's in   this new pop-up window i'll delete that mask and  start again so i'm going to choose luminance range   and it will present me with this bar or  luminance slider now watch what happens   when i take the mouse over the image it gives me  an eyedropper and i can select different parts of   the image with different luminance values which is  a fancy way of saying different brightness levels   i have my overlay set to white on black as  i prefer this as it gives me the best impact   of what the mask is affecting if i click on the  dark island it's selecting a dark luminance range   and over here on the luminance range map or that  slider it has pulled the square over the dark end   of that slider there are two parts to this the  main square which you can adjust and these tags   on the bottom the main square is the brightness  or luminance range it will be affecting and then   the tags at the bottom relate to the fall off or  fade off of that mask so if you have the tag right   next to the edge of the box it's a harsh fall off  going straight from white to black in the mask and   going right from 100 changes to zero changes this  relates to a mask with a harsh edge and then the   further away from the edge of the square this tag  is it will give you a softer more gradual fall off   so this is great to be able to really refine  the edge of that mask in some circumstances   you'll want that to be really harsh and in other  circumstances you'll want it to fall off gradually   now with this pop-up box you might be thinking  it's annoying covering part of your image   especially in this case where the changes  i'm making are in that top right hand corner   but you can move this to wherever you want so  you can get it out of the way however when you   come out of the mask and then go back into the  mask it will reappear in that default position   in the top right hand corner now you can link it  to this right hand column so if you don't like it   over your photo just grab it by the tag at the top  and drop it just below the tools panel this is the   only place you can really put it permanently and  then it will stay there whether you come out of it   or not the only downside to this is that it will  push the sliders down and off the bottom of the   screen i almost wish we could drop it anywhere in  lightroom on the left hand side on the right hand   side no matter where we wanted it it would drop  it but we can't next with the color range mask   with this image you'd think if you selected the  color range and then selected the blue in the sky   it would work just fine but there is a lot of  blue in the shadows in the landscape and just   on a side note this is why i prefer the white on  black overlay if i just switch back to the red   overlay you can see it looks like it selected the  whole image but when i switch back to the white   on black overlay you can see it has selected  a lot of the image but to a lesser degree over   the land but more so in the shadows which figures  as this was early in the morning and the shadows   are very blue now this is another great example  of how i can build on a mask this mask as is   would be pretty useless unless you wanted  to adjust the blue in the whole of the image   but you could do this in the hsl slider panel  i just want to adjust the blue in the sky so   i'll click subtract then select sky and then  click on invert and now apart from the top   parts of the mountain shadows it has pretty  much selected just the blue tones in the sky   the radial tool works pretty much the  same way but now it has two circles   i'm pretty sure it only had one before everything  inside the inner circle will be affected   one hundred percent by any changes that you make  anything between the two lines will drop from 100   down to zero percent and it looks like it hit zero  just outside the outer line for some weird reason   you can change this with a feather slider like  before but now you can grab this orange ball as   well on the inner circle and then change it here  this will change the amount that is affected 100   so like i said before with the radial tool when  using the white on black overlay you can't see   the image below so a color overlay works much  better here but then if i was to add to this   mask say with a color range and i'll just select  white you can kind of see what's happening with   the red overlay but then if i switch back to the  white on black overlay you can really see what's   happening with this mask you have the radial mask  and then the colour range mask all in one and if   you hover the cursor over one of the tags on the  image it will show you the radial mask on its   own and then the colour range mask on its own but  any adjustments you make will affect all of this   as it is one mask if you want to separate these  just duplicate the masks and then delete the   opposing ones in each of these new masks so in  the first one i'll delete the radial gradient   and in the second one i'll delete the color  range now i can make changes to them separately   if you have two separate masks you want  to combine just click on the sub mask of   one of them and drag it to the main mask of  the other one and then they'll be combined   now it could get quite confusing if  you have a load of different masks   say one for the sky one for the ground one for  the subject and so on and so forth you're going   to get confused as to which one does what and  it would get quite frustrating because you'd   have to click on them to find which one was which  so they've given us the option to name the masks   then you won't lose track of what is what i  remember with the older versions you'd have   lots of different dots over the screen when you  had multiple masks and you'd have to hover over   or click on them to see which one did what so  this just seems a little bit more organized   to change the name of the mask just double click  on it and type in whatever you want so these were   originally mask 1 mask 2 and mask 3. you can also  change the names of the sub masks as well again by   double clicking on them it's great that they've  given us this because all you need to do now   is click on the mask button and then it will  give you the list of all of the different masks   and if you've named them correctly you'll  know exactly what each of them will do   now these are three separate masks and i built  them all from this sky selection tool so say   for instance with the paragliders if i switch it  across to white on black you can see just those   paragliders are selected the landscape that's  just selected although it is a little bit fuzzy   with those clouds in the background because  it couldn't quite find that horizon properly   and the sky is just an inverted version of  that with the paragliders taken away from   the sky remember with masks what is black it  doesn't change and what is white it does change   and then every gradient of gray between the two it  changes it less and less now the power of editing   is in local adjustments this really gives me  so much control over how i make changes to my   photographs it will take a bit of getting used to  but if you play around with it and make lots of   different masks for all of your different photos  you'll pick it up pretty quickly does take time   to get honed in with this and to work out how  it works and how it can trip you up but if you   just edit a load of photos you will get used to it  quite quickly now there are other changes as well   these include a lot more presets and they've  called them premium presets to probably make   us feel special so if you do use presets already  as a starting point and then edit from there there   are more of these to choose from so if i get rid  of the navigator and open up presets you can see   there's so many more and each of these have a drop  down menu just so you can make those basic changes   and then work up from there also when you sync  any adjustments across a series of photographs it   seems to process those a bit quicker than before  again this all depends on how quick your computer   is but they are trying to address the speed issues  in lightroom now i only did it with three images   there but it does seem to process those sync  changes a lot quicker than it used to in the older   version with the metadata in the library module  this can be organized a little bit better you can   choose what's in the list and what isn't so you  can just see what you need to and nothing else   so if you change the metadata to default then  you'll have this customize button at the bottom   click on this and then you can choose exactly  what goes in this list i mostly use capture   time my primary settings which are shutter speed  aperture and iso the focal length and then the   35 millimeter equivalent just in case i'm using a  crop centered camera and i want to know that full   frame equivalent focal range but you can have as  much or as little in here as you want if you use   the filter system in the library module they've  refined the date system as well so you can quickly   find what you're looking for that is if you  remember the date that you took the photograph on   now i mentioned earlier that it creates a new  catalog when you first start this version up   with an older catalogue this is because they have  changed the architecture to optimize the catalog   and save on storage so basically your catalog will  be smaller so it's good that they're addressing   this as well there's nothing worse than editing  a photo and then your computer pops up with a   message your hard drive is almost full and then  everything kind of starts to grind to a halt   and you can't really do much with it now there is  one annoying thing for me that i found with this   new update but i'm sure i'll kind of get over it  with time i am used to the crop tool being right   here at the edge of this panel now because there's  less in this panel they've moved it further across   to the middle so what i have found is if i'm  working on an image and i go to the crop tool   i kind of quickly go to this corner without  thinking about it and click there because it's   just muscle memory and then realize it's just  a little bit further in but as i said i'm sure   this will go with time as i get more used to  this layout all in all this is a great update   and it seems like lightroom is becoming more and  more a standalone editing and cataloging tool with   less of a need to round trip to photoshop i've  found that i'm going across to photoshop less   and i'm just editing everything that i need  to and making the changes that i need to   in lightroom i have been using it quite a lot  for the last week and have really noticed a big   improvement with my editing times and speed of  doing all of these local adjustments i'm guessing   it's because of the likes of luminar and photoshop  introducing sky replacements and things like that   so adobe wants to keep lightroom up to speed with  at least masking i was half thinking that they   would introduce sky replacements in this lightroom  update but they're keeping that to photoshop for   now and if any of you have watched my channel  for a while you'll know my thoughts on sky   replacements already and if you don't you need to  watch this video next in it i go into what i think   is too much when it comes to editing so make sure  you're not an over editor and go and watch it now

Channel: Mike Smith

Views: 3,747

Keywords: AMAZING new tools in Lightroom! | October 2021 update, Masking tool lightroom, lightroom 2021 new features, lightroom 2021 tutorial, lightroom 2021 editing, lightroom 2021 photo editing, Lightroom CC update, Lightroom classic 2021 update, Edit your photos, Better editing in lightroom, How do I edit in lightroom, Adobe, Adobe lightroom, Lightroom better than photoshop, Lightroom editing, Local adjustments lightroom, lightroom local adjustments

Id: brsFnhrNf08

Length: 25min 40sec (1540 seconds)

Published: Thu Nov 04 2021