Luminar AI: Full Edit with only Local Masks!

[Music] hey guys i'm jim i edit photos thanks for stopping by today i'm in luminar ai and i'm talking about local masking it's a new feature in luminar ai and it's effectively replaced the functionality of layers now it's not exactly the same and you cannot do everything that you could do with layers with local masking however it's a very powerful replacement and i think hopefully this video will give you some ideas about how you can use local masking to edit a photo so i thought it would be an interesting challenge to edit a photo completely with local masks and nothing else so that's what i'm doing here's the photo and the only thing i've done to this photo is remove a spot that's in the upper left so if i do a before and after you can see a spot way up in that upper left corner and after no other changes to the photo so i'm in the local masking tool i'm going to click add and i'm going to use basic i'm only going to use basic local masks i don't need a texture on this landscape and the first thing i'm going to do is increase contrast a little bit i'm going to go about 17 or 18. i'm going to pull the highlights down and maybe something about like that and i'm going to bump up the shadows i'm going to go about a 38 or so so pretty simple and straightforward and i'm not going to mask even though it's a local masking tool you can apply these and then not mask them in so all these edits i just applied which took me from that to that are global i didn't mess them in and i'm not going to so just keep in mind you can use these local masks across the entire photo if you want to all it requires is you not to mask in those edits so i'm going to get another local mask and get started on my second one in this case i'm going to warm it up i'm going to do about a positive 30 or so i'm going to increase the exposure a little bit as well i'm going to go to about 0.6465 something like that contrast is going to go up by about 10. highlights are coming down about a 17 or 18 and vibrance is going up about 20. now let me get that in place now this i am going to mask i'm going to get a gradient mask and all i really want to do is apply all those edits that i just made to the lower portion of the photo so i gradient mask them in you can see how that's applied if you want to check your mask you can hit the forward slash key there it is i'm happy with that i'm going to hit enter and basically i've just made all those changes to the bottom of the photo as you can see there's the before and the after so now that i've done that i'm going to add a new basic mask and this time i'm going to work on the top of the photo warmth goes up about a 35 or so 36 and the exposure comes up a little bit as well tiny bit of contrast is going to be added and a slight reduction in highlights shadows are going up as well we're going to mid 40s here and i'm going to do negative structure because this is going to be for the sky and i just kind of like that soft sky look and lastly vibrance is also going up i want to keep it kind of similar to what i did in the bottom of the photo because of course i want it to match and then of course i'm going to get a gradient mask and here i'm just going to drag this down across the sky something about like that and so again check your mask forward slash i'm happy with that i'm going to turn that off or excuse me just close that tool and if i look at the before there it is before and if you look at the top of the photo you can see the impact that that change has had there we go so so far there's my base photo and here's my current state and that's one basic mask globally one basic mass for the bottom and a second basic mask both gradients i should say for the top but now here's where i'm going to start using different masks to target specific areas of the photo and i think that's one of the things that's so powerful about this it's you know it's useful to use a gradient mask and cover a wide area but using brush mask and radial mask can really help you target specific things that's what we're going to start on now okay i'm going to start with an exposure increase a little bit like that and a little bit of structure as well and that's going to be about a 25 27 something like that and what i want to do here is i'm on paint mask and i just want to paint this in so i'm going to right bracket key to make it a little bit bigger and i'm just going to paint the edit i just did which is an increase in structure and an increase in exposure and i'm just going to paint it in across the land mass and i'm going to come in here and do that in the bottom as well and that should just about cover me let me um look at that there you go you can kind of see what's happened there so if i turn this tool off there it is before a little bit darker a little less crispy and the landmass in the distance as well as the foreground grass and you can see the after it's a little bit brighter and a little bit more detailed because of that increase in structure so i think that really helped now i want to do something else i'm going to add a new basic mask and this time i'm going to add a little bit of warmth i'm going to go like mid 40s or so but i don't want that across the entire photo so once again i'm going to get a mask but this time it's going to be a radial and i'm going to click the right side to get that one and all i want to do is basically warm up this section of land here because i want to show a little bit more like the sun is hitting it there we go something about like that and then maybe scoot it over whoa just scoot that over a little bit like that and all i've done is basically if i turn this off you can see it's a little bit cooler there in that land that's the distant landmass and afterwards it's a little bit warmer all i'm trying to do is target that area which you can see here and if i again turn on the mask view you can see where my mask is being applied now i actually think i might expand that a little bit maybe a little bit more like that let me turn that off but basically i want to show some of that sunlight that's coming from the left side of the frame kind of hitting that distant land so if i turn that off you can see the before and then when i turn it back on you can see the after just a little bit warmer in fact i might even go a tiny bit more i don't want to go too much like that to where it really stands out i just want to pop a little bit more of light and warmth over there in that section of land as i said to illustrate kind of how the sun setting over there might be hitting that that piece of land now that i've done that i'm going to go get another radial mask and this time i'm going to go ahead and put the radial mask in first you can do it either way i tend to often do my edits and then apply the mask but in this case i'm going to go ahead and apply the radial mask and what i want to do here is kind of similar to what i did over on that landmass and i just want to pop the warmth and the sunlight over here with another radial mask so something about like that now i want to come over here i want to drag the warmth up i'm going to go mid-50s or so i'm also going to give a little bit of saturation so maybe like a 12 or 13 something like that and a little bit of vibrance as well and basically what i'm trying to do and i'm going to expand this area a little bit i'm just popping that sunset look over there so if i show you my mask basically the edits i just made the warmth the saturation and the vibrance they're hitting that section of the photo so it's me just targeting that area to warm it up a little bit because that is the sun the last kind of gasp of sunlight kind of passing through and i wanted to pop that a little bit so there it is before definitely tamer not nearly as vibrant and after much warmer more saturated things like that just trying to pop that section of the photo and you can target those areas nicely with a radial mask okay now i'm going to come back and i want to target the pond itself and this time i want to do some negative structure i just like that a lot on water and it defaults to the brush mask so i'm just going to increase that a little bit and all i'm going to do is paint this negative structure into the pond because all i want to do is just soften up the look of that water and create a little bit softer look and a little bit more of a kind of a almost like a long exposure i just like blurred soft water kind of like i do with skies but i did this now and separately because i wanted to target it specifically with a brush so if i show you that let me hit the forward slash key there it is the beginning down here this second basic mask i did a gradient across the entire bottom but i did more things i worked on like the exposure and contrast the highlights and shadows it wasn't appropriate for me to include the negative structure there because i didn't want to cover the entire bottom of the photo i wanted more structure in the grass which i did separately with the brush and now i wanted to come back and do less structure here in the water to soften that up and give it a little bit softer feel so if i turn this off you can see the before a little bit more texture in the water a little bit of ripples things like that and then the after just a little bit softer so we've come a long way to be honest there it is before we've done anything and there it is now and we've got basically seven different local masks here remember the first one was global the next six were all targeted for specific things in specific parts of the photo which i love about it and what i often find myself doing is coming back with one last basic mask and this one is once again just going to be applied globally it's kind of what i consider the finishing touch and in this case i'm going to start with about a 25 in contrast i'm going to take the highlights down a little bit like at 13 or so but i'm going to bump up the shadows because that added contrast does create a little bit more darkness in the photo and i'm going to pull back some of the shadows so that i don't lose visibility so i think i'll go low 20s there and i want to add a little bit more warmth overall to the photo it's very blue and you know there's nothing wrong with that and i love my blues but this is a sunset i want to give a little bit more warm feel so this is again just kind of a final touch up and i think maybe something about like that looks kind of nice it pulls back some of the blue but there's still plenty of blue but it gives a little bit more warmth overall so if i turn off this basic mask which again it's my final one therefore i kind of treat it as a i don't treat it it is a global mass because i'm not applying it with a mask anywhere in the photo so this these are global edits but there it is you can see the overall warmth of the photo has changed there it is cooler and then when i turn it back on there it is overall warmer it helps pop a little bit more of that sunlight over there warms up the entire photo a little bit of contrast things like that but that's really it that's my entire edit so let me show you the before there it is before we did anything and that's the current state and let me do this sliding window here you can see we came quite a long way and that's really the power of local mask and why i'm enjoying them so much because you can do an entire edit of a photo without ever using any of the other tools you can just use these basic local masks and frankly get a whole lot done so one more time there's the full edit left to right did a lot of different things targeted specific areas and that's what's so great about local masking whether it's a brush a radial or gradient you can target areas apply those edits accordingly and come out with a finished photo that you're proud of that's how i use it that's a a tour if you will of using local mass to target specific areas and i just wanted to illustrate that you can fully edit a photo without doing anything else except local masking hope it helps my friends hope it gives you some ideas thanks for watching you guys take care of yourselves out there have fun editing i'll see you later and adios

Channel: Jim Nix

Views: 3,749

Keywords: Jim Nix, travel, photography, post processing, editing, training, tutorial, photo editor, photo editing, Luminar AI

Id: TNzXS52_kU0

Length: 10min 47sec (647 seconds)

Published: Thu Jan 14 2021