(If you can’t view the video, click here.)
The new Masking Panel is one of the biggest changes to Lightroom since 2012. It’s incredibly powerful and flexible, with better tools for viewing and organizing all your local adjustments, two new AI-powered selection tools (Select Subject and Select Sky), and best of all, the ability to combine selections in almost unlimited ways to create exactly the selection you want.
I’m really excited about all these new capabilities, but there’s a lot to learn, and it takes some getting used to. So I’ve just finished a new three-part video tutorial all about Lightroom’s Masking Panel.
I’ve included Part 1 here for free to help get you up to speed with the Masking Panel. This video will help you navigate the new layout and learn how to use its great new tools for viewing, organizing, and renaming your masks.
Part 2 covers the selection tools, including the two new, AI-powered ones: Select Subject and Select Sky. Part 3 delves into the most powerful – and complex – aspect of the Masking Panel: how to combine selections to create exactly the selection you want.
The full three-part tutorial is included in both of my previous Lightroom courses (Landscapes in Lightroom: The Essential Step-by-Step Guide, and Landscapes in Lightroom: Advanced Techniques). Normally these course are $39 each, but through Friday, December 10th, you can get 15% off either course , or both together, by using the code MASKING15. (Click on “Have a Coupon?” to use the code.) And after that the price of each course will go up from $39 to $47.
Or you can get just the Masking tutorials alone. They’re only $15 until December 10th, when the price will go up to $20. (No code required.)
Visit my Education Center to purchase any of these courses!
Any purchase includes access to the forums in the Education Center, where you can ask me questions about Lightroom or any aspect of landscape photography. And I’m also planning future live, online processing demonstrations for Education Center members.
If you’re already a member of the Education Center, just log in with the username (or email) and password you created when you signed up, then navigate to the course(s) you’re enrolled in to view the new Masking videos. If you bought my Landscapes in Lightroom: The Essential Step-by-Step Guide course as a stand-alone ebook in the past, you might be eligible for a free or discounted upgrade to the current version. Just email me and include the name and email address you used to make that previous purchase.
As I said, there’s a lot to learn about the Masking Panel, but once you dive in I think you’ll be excited about all the new ways to improve your images. I hope these videos will help speed up the learning curve, and allow you to take advantage of all that power.
— Michael Frye
Related Posts: Major Lightroom Update: the New Masking Panel; Lightroom’s New Color Grading Panel
Michael Frye is a professional photographer specializing in landscapes and nature. He is the author or principal photographer of The Photographer’s Guide to Yosemite, Yosemite Meditations, Yosemite Meditations for Women, Yosemite Meditations for Adventurers, and Digital Landscape Photography: In the Footsteps of Ansel Adams and the Great Masters. He has also written three eBooks: Light & Land: Landscapes in the Digital Darkroom, Exposure for Outdoor Photography, and Landscapes in Lightroom: The Essential Step-by-Step Guide. Michael has written numerous magazine articles on the art and technique of photography, and his images have been published in over thirty countries around the world. Michael has lived either in or near Yosemite National Park since 1983, currently residing just outside the park in Mariposa, California.
You said as a former purchaser of Landscapes In Lightroom I might get a discount for a free or discounted update.
That would be great and I would also like to get access to the 3 new masking tutorials. Would that be included?
With best regards Hans-Peter
Thanks for the videos….very helpful. Could one use a Milky Way photo, use it as my own sky replacement in Photoshop then bring the new photo back into LR and begin using the masking panel for adjustments to both the sky (Milky Way) and foreground?
You’re welcome John – glad you found them helpful.
If I understand your question correctly, yes. When you take images from Lightroom to Photoshop to blend them together (for whatever reason) I think there are two potential workflows you can follow:
A) Continue to do everything in Photoshop. In other words, once you’ve blended the images, use Photoshop’s tools to further refine the appearance of the now-merged image to taste. Photoshop has lots of sophisticated tools for doing that – including, now, select subject, select sky, etc. – if you’re familiar enough with Photoshop to use those tools. If you take this route, I recommend always doing any further adjustments to the image in Photoshop, so that you’re not confused about what you’ve done where, and so you avoid making adjustments in Lightroom on top of adjustments in Photoshop that counteract each other. Once you save the image in Photoshop, and it appears back in Lightroom, if you want to make further changes, open it back up in Photoshop (in Lightroom go to Photo > Edit In > Edit in Photoshop, and choose Edit Original). And please, don’t flatten the Photoshop file. Keep your layers and layer masks intact so you can modify them later if necessary.
B) JUST do the image-blending in Photoshop, then do everything else in Lightroom. This sounds like what you’re describing, and is a good choice if you’re more familiar with and more comfortable with Lightroom’s tools. Once you’ve blended the images to your satisfaction in Photoshop, don’t do anything else there except save the image. (Again, make sure you don’t flatten the image. Keep your layers and layer masks intact in case you want to modify them later.) Once the saved PSD or TIFF appears back in Lightroom, go to the Develop Module and further refine the appearance of the image to taste. If you need to modify anything about the image blending (like modify a layer mask, for example), open the file in Photoshop (in Lightroom go to Photo > Edit In > Edit in Photoshop, and choose Edit Original), make your modifications, save it, and those changes to the image-blending will appear in the image back in Lightroom – with your Lightroom Develop Module adjustments on top of those changes.
Either way, once you’ve chosen a workflow for that image, stick with it, so that you avoid confusion about what you’ve done where, and avoid making adjustments in Lightroom that counteract adjustments you made in Photoshop, or vice versa.
Thanks Michael….your reply was perfect. Thank you for always willing to share. Milky Way photography at times seems over my head (literally it is) so this does help.