For Lightroom users - a different way to use AutoMask

[davidedric]

I would never have thought of this, and it's pretty impressive:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LypUUCT7XFQ

Found the link on LuLa

Dave

[DanK]

Dave,

Thanks for posting this. Very helpful.

Dan

[Mike Buckley]

If it's true that Adobe isn't making this capability widely known, they're really missing the boat in my opinion. That masking technology is remarkably close in effect to the control point technology in the Google Nik suite and Nikon Capture NX2. If Adobe would add a "negative brush" for subtracting the unwanted areas of the mask as quickly as adding the wanted areas, the technology would essentially be the same as the control point technology.

This is really good to know, Dave. If I ever fully migrate to Lightroom, I would use this masking technology daily, just as I use the control point technology daily.

[Shadowman]

Nice link.

[Polar01]

Been using that in ACR for sometime now, very similar to using the colour picker in Photoshop to select areas to create a mask for adjustments to be applied to.

Cheers: Allan

[Downrigger]

it's pretty impressive:

It really is. I've fooled with it a little now, and darn, I feel like going back over all my favs and checking for opportunities to use this. Amazed at myself for not figuring this out on my own. Thanks so much, Dave.

[dennybeall]

I'm a died in the wool Photoshop Guy but may have to change my opinion of Lightroom????
Thanks for sharing the link to this video.

[davidedric]

Hi folks,

If you are interested, here is a link to the original LuLa thread. In it, one of the members illustrates how he uses Lightroom's non-destructive processing to prepare ab image to make maximum use of AutoMask. When he's created the mask, he just reverses the earlier changes.

http://forum.luminous-landscape.com/...?topic=99076.0

Dave

[jprzybyla]

Good stuff Dave, thanks for sharing.

Regards to you and Margalit

[Simon Garrett]

Thanks, very useful. I saw the link on dpreview, but somehow missed the one on LuLa. I've used the adjustment brush and automask many times, but this video gave me a better understanding of how automask works.

People often point out all the things you can do in Photoshop that you can't do in LR, but surprisingly often there are other ways of achieving the same thing in LR with different tools.

I wouldn't want to be without Photoshop or another pixel editor, but when you can do something in LR I find it's often much, much quicker and easier than doing it in Photoshop. And you can do it non-destructively without having 500Mbyte heavily-layered PSD or TIF files.

Edit: I've just read FranciscoDisilvestro's excellent post in the LuLa thread (http://forum.luminous-landscape.com/...?topic=99076.0).

This is something I hadn't realised. In order to make automask more accurate, you can tweak exposure, contrast, individual colour levels, even go to black and white. When you've got the area masked that you want, undo all those contrast and colour adjustments - but you've still got the same mask. As Francisco shows, you can use this for very accurate masking of the sky, for example.

[davidedric]

If Adobe would add a "negative brush" for subtracting the unwanted areas of the mask as quickly as adding the wanted areas, the technology would essentially be the same as the control point technology.

Actually, Mike, I think they do. If you go back to the LuLa thread, Jeff Schewe explains how he does just that (if I understand you correctly). Also read the contribution from Wayne Fox, the author of the video.

Dave

[Simon Garrett]

Actually, Mike, I think they do. If you go back to the LuLa thread, Jeff Schewe explains how he does just that (if I understand you correctly). Also read the contribution from Wayne Fox, the author of the video.

Dave

To use the erase brush, select it in the adjustment brush panel here:



or just hold down ALT while brushing (not sure about Mac). The "+" in the brush cursor changes to a "-" when the erase brush is in use.

[Mike Buckley]

This information about the negative brush is such good news! When I first tried using it, I apparently did it incorrectly and did not get the results I hoped for. When I saw Dave's and Simon's follow-up posts, I tried it again, this time correctly, and it worked as I hoped would happen.

Now that I have come full cycle on this learning process, I am totally shocked that this capability is not displayed front and center with a big spotlight on it at Adobe's website. At first glance (that's a good description of the small amount of time I have devoted to it), it seems to be just as effective as the control point technology Nik built into Nikon Capture NX2 and more effective than the control point technology built into the Google Nik suite of products.

When Nikon was selling Capture NX and later NX2, the control point technology was a major selling point if not the most important selling point at the web site devoted to marketing that software. I remember very clearly how Nikon demonstrated it. That demonstration got my attention so much that it was the single factor that motivated me to download the software and try it for myself. I have no idea why this use of the auto mask doesn't receive the same attention at the Lightroom web site.

[davidedric]

Only just had a decent play myself. Certainly takes some of the grunt out of masking - makes it fun again!

Dave

[jprzybyla]

You also can erase by holding down the ALT key, the + sign in the middle of the brush will change to a - sign signifying it is erase mode.

[Rebel]

Thanks for posting this Dave, can't believe I didn't know about this before!

[Mike Buckley]

I've just learned at another website that the use of "plus" and "minus" Adjustment Brushes in combination with Auto Mask we're discussing can also be done using Adobe Camera Raw.

[Downrigger]

As all agree - this is a terrific way to use the auto mask adjustment brush. I've been experimenting with it a good deal. One thing to watch out for is patchy, noise-like results in areas transitional between the selected area and non-selected tone/color. They can be erased (wow!is that alt key trick handy - didn't know about it) if non-contiguous, but not if they complicate selected edges. This will be seen best when you check the image at 1:1 or higher with "show selected mask overlay" on.

This is an understandable limitation - the adjustment has to be used gently with this technique when there are not good edges between areas desired for selection and areas not desired. Clean up with a second layer with decreased sharpness and clarity can sometimes solve some of the problems that arise from this issue.

[Bobobird]

I've just learned at another website that the use of "plus" and "minus" Adjustment Brushes in combination with Auto Mask we're discussing can also be done using Adobe Camera Raw.

Do you have a link to that ?

Thanks.

[Mike Buckley]

Bobo,

View this video. It displays only the use of the "plus" Adjustment Brush but I was told that using the "minus" Adjustment Brush works the same way as described earlier in the thread when using Lightroom.