The Secret Lightroom Tool I now use on every photo

so in this video i want to talk about a  secret tool that can really improve your   photos that i found out about  in lightroom a few months ago morning everybody it's fantastic to see you all  again so this is the first video that i've made   for probably a month now um you have seen a few  videos a few weeks ago but they were made quite   a long time ago obviously i've had my back  operation now and um by the fact i'm making   a video that's got to be good progress hasn't it  i have um had some issues with my back in that   um i've had some swelling in my back and that  means i can't really walk very well so i think   it's going to be a few weeks maybe a month before  i can get out and and do some photography outside   which is really frustrating um but i do have this  little drone so ggi sent me this um dji mini 3 pro   and i'm going to do a video on this and um shoot  in drone photography so that's something i can do   in my garden so that's going to come probably  next week maybe the week after okay on to this   video and it's all about lightroom and this secret  little tool which is i think i've spoken about it   a couple of times before but i guarantee you  that you'll find this useful so make sure you   keep watching all the way to the end because um  some of the best bits are right at the end okay   and also if you like the video give it a thumbs  up right let's get into it so the secret tool is   in the masking tools here so if you click this  little round icon here you'll see you can create   a new mask and one of the things you can do is  select sky so in this particular instance here   then this is a really good use of it i can select  the sky and it selects the sky in the scene doing   a really good job of going around all this tree  now you could just go and change the exposure on   that but i find that when you use select sky and  change the exposure then it changes the whole sky   the same i think it looks better if you put a  graduated filter on it and this is where this   tool comes in so if you click the option button on  a mac then and i'll put the command for a pc down   here somewhere but if you click the option button  on a mac you see this little thing here saying   intersect and that means that you can intersect  masks together and that ability to intercept masks   uncovers so much potential in lightroom so this  one is a good example so let me show you this so   i've got the sky and then quite often what i do  is i intersect it with a linear gradient and what   that does if i just drag over this linear gradient  here you will see that i've now got a linear   gradient intersected with this sky and you can see  on the mask now that it's it's just sort of softly   going down behind that tree and now if i just  darken that it's a much more pleasing effect on   the sky can you see how it just sort of graduates  into the lighter tones at the bottom of the image   i found that just works so much better so this  is a really good example another good example   where you might want to use that is this example  here so again i've got a drone shot actually here   um i might want to go and click select sky  it's going to go and select the sky if i just   darkened it all then i think it looks really  odd around here because it's just too dark at   the bottom but if i just go and click this mask  and then click intersect with a linear gradient   and do that and then darken it you can see  that it's a much much more pleasing effect   so that's one way of using it i'm intersecting  it with a sky another way of doing it is using it   with the brush tool and this is probably the way  that i use it most of the time so let me go on to   this woodland shot here so i've got a woodland  shot here and say i want to go and brush on   some brightness just on the side of this branch  here so what i could do is i could go to the mask   here i could click colour range and i could click  this tree trunk here and that's done a good job of   selecting the tree trunk but it's also selected  all the other brown things within the scene   but what i can do is i can  intersect that colour range   with a brush now at the moment i've obviously not  brushed anything on so at the moment i've just got   that brown to paint on basically so i'm going  to do just have a brush with a bit of a feather   and then i'm going to have a 40 or 50 flow  so if i go over twice it'll provide the   whole effect so now what i can do is i can  just brush brush on that brown effect now   obviously what i want to be able to do is i want  to increase the exposure a little bit maybe i   just want to add a little bit of warmth to those  highlights and maybe just reduce the highlights   and add a bit more texture and now what i can  do obviously it's done everywhere here at the   moment but what i can do is where i brush is where  it's going to apply that effect and you can see   that it isn't actually applying it to the leaves  so if i go over and hover over that you can see   it's just applied it to the trunk and it hasn't  gone over those leaves because i'm just selecting   where brown intersects with the brush it's really  good really really really useful that another good   way of using it if i go on to this shot here so  this is a shot in the pharaoh islands and maybe   i want to go and add a radial gradient and i  want to increase the brightness maybe of this   central area because i think that'll look good add  some more contrast and maybe increase the whites   the problem with that is i didn't really want to  increase this area here now i could mask that out   and be a little bit careful but i don't think  it needs to be super careful all i need to do   on that radial gradient is intersect it with a  brush um and that means that i've still got that   nice soft radial gradient going out from the  middle the reason i just don't want to do this   with the brush is that you you want to still have  that soft regular gradient but you want to apply   brush where you want that to apply and it  just means that you're getting the best of   both worlds really so now i can just brush it on  and so what i can do is i can just go and brush   it knowing that when i go up here it's going  to be nice and soft and it's just going to do   a great job of it up here but then when i get  down here i can just be a little bit more careful   around this i'm not bothered if it goes on a  little bit but i don't want it to go super dark   and that has meant that i've just created  something that is really believable i've kept   those cliffs a little bit darker which is really  good and it just makes it a lot better really   okay the next one is again one that i use  all the time which is intersecting a radial   gradient with a luminance mask so let me show  you on here so this is a shot that i took in   the lake district this amazing light and i just  want to make that glow just a little bit softer   so the usual usual way i do that is i just create  a radial gradient and i'm just going to just   put that about there maybe i'll move it over that  way a little bit and then a good way of doing it   is just reducing the dehaze so you can see as i  reduce the dehaze and create a softer glow there   maybe i want to reduce the clarity to make it  even softer and maybe i just want to increase the   brightness a little bit of it um i've overdone  this a little bit probably just to show in the   demo but the problem here is that i didn't want  to increase the brightness of these trees because   we're seeing the shadow side of those trees so  the way to do that is i can just intersect that   radial gradient with a luminance range so i  can just go and select this luminance here   and what that's going to do is you can see can you  see it's just not selecting that tree now i could   i could think okay well that's maybe just a bit  harsh so i can go and i can tweak this and i can   say okay i want to i want it to start at the  whites and go softly towards the darker areas   so basically what's happening is it's selecting  that radial gradient and then anything of   luminance from white through to around about  the sort of mid tones down here and it's got a   nice soft um part to it but if i get rid of that  luminance range can you see the trees have just   gone bright as well now you might like it better  like that but there's quite a lot of opportunities   for this because quite often if you do a radial  gradient it might go over something you think   i didn't want that to go softer there's so many  things i do it for like for instance this one's   a really good example of it where here i might  want to do a radial gradient and i might want   to darken the cliff in the background but not  darken this cliff so much and that there's a   difference in luminosity between those two cliffs  so by combining intersecting that radial gradient   with the luminosity mask is so powerful  this intersect thing is so so powerful   well worth doing okay the final thing  i just want to show you is that you can   you can do the intersect with a radial gradient  with a different mass like a linear gradient so   let me just show you this so for instance here  say i've got a radial gradient on this sky here   and i may do it like that and i might think okay i  want to just reduce the clarity of the sky i want   to make it look a bit softer and a little bit  warmer just now again you might think okay it   looks okay on the c but i don't want to soften the  c so much so then what you can do is you can say   i want to intersect that with a linear gradient  and i can just put a linear gradient like this   and now i've got just i probably want to i've  just got now a soft gradient linearly going   through from the sea to the actual sun there and  i've not lost those sharpness um elements within   the c here once you start using this you'll find  so many uses for it so to do it you just click   option when you're on your mask and you can then  intersect it you can intercept multiple masks as   well so maybe you want to get something like this  and then you want to brush it on you can intercept   as many things as you want and it's basically  where those masks cross over is where you use them   it is just so powerful it makes my editing so much  quicker which is fantastic for me with a bad back   okay that was it really um i want to just say  one more thing about um something that i'm really   passionate about which is the world landscape  photography competition we're raising money for   ukraine um and the red cross operating in new  ukraine there's still a few weeks left to enter   your photos i've had a few questions as well and  people have asked about what category to put it in   um the the details of that are on the website  and i'll put a link below but basically if it's   a vista then that's basically a a view that could  be a lake or some trees in the distance or some   mountain ranges seascapes is obvious it's anything  by the coast and then woodland is where you're in   the woodland or it's an individual tree or it's  all about the trees basically what i'd say is that   woodland and seascapes are pretty obvious anything  that's not woodland and seascape is probably vista   so and the other thing is that don't be too  worried if you get it in the wrong category   we will change it into another category if  you don't think it's in the right category   um thanks for everyone that's entered so so far  um but it'd be great if more people could enter   just because you're a beginner don't think that  you won't get anywhere um there's loads of people   that have won things in the past that just didn't  expect so you've you've got a good chance you   might produce something that you just didn't think  was good because we're our own harshest critics um   and also i'm going to be reviewing some random  photos from there as well i'm going to do as   many as i can and i'm going to create a separate  video that i'll share with everybody that entered   okay that's it um i'm going to go and play with  my drone in the garden sounds weird doesn't it   but anyway this is so light this drone is just  ridiculously light um it feels a bit like a toy   but i've messed about with it and spoiler it's  pretty epic you've probably seen reviews if you're   into drones but this is a pretty epic drone and  also it turns that way as well so you can do like   portrait style as well as landscape which you  used to be able to do with the first dji drone   good that's it thanks for watching  like subscribe see you next sunday bye

Channel: Nigel Danson

Views: 218,150

Keywords: Lightroom, lightroom tips, photography, lightroom tutorial, lightroom masks, masks in lightroom, lightroom 2022

Id: HV5cC76zM2E

Length: 13min 3sec (783 seconds)

Published: Sun May 15 2022