While most photographers will perform their detailed edits in Photoshop, Lightroom has several tools that can save you the time of taking your photo into a second software. With just a few helpful tips, Lightroom’s adjustment brush is capable of more than you think.
Most of you are familiar with the basic functions of the adjustment brush in Lightroom. It gives you the ability to apply settings to specific areas of an image rather than the entire photo. The brush itself has a few basic sliders that give you a decent amount of control when you are applying the settings, and you can then tweak the edits after you add them. In this video, Lucy Martin demonstrates all of this as well as a few advanced methods that would greatly benefit photographers who use Lightroom.
The main reason for taking a photo into Photoshop and not staying in Lightroom is the lack of ability to control the brush without more advanced tools. Martin demonstrates how to overcome this by using the appropriate settings, as well as turning on the overlooked auto mask tool to get an accurate application. She also shares how to paint color onto an image using the brush tool, something that photographers rarely use. One thing I will add is that with Lightroom’s recently added range mask, you can get plenty of control when performing targeted edits. This tool can identify specific colors or luminance values to apply your settings to and is a function that is worth taking the time to master.
If you want to save the time of bringing your image into Photoshop and maximize what you can do in Lightroom, take a look at the video above.
