Masks are an essential tool in photo editing. This fantastic video tutorial will show you one of the most useful types of masks in Lightroom.
Coming to you from Gareth Evans with Park Cameras, this insightful video focuses on a specific and powerful mask type: the objects mask. Evans demonstrates its versatility and efficiency, showing how it can make your editing process much smoother. Unlike other masks, the objects mask allows you to quickly and accurately select and edit specific elements within your photos. This is particularly useful for isolating and adjusting details that would be tedious to mask by hand.
Evans starts by comparing the objects mask with the subject mask. For example, when selecting a squirrel in a photo, the subject mask does a decent job but includes some branches. The objects mask, however, lets you isolate elements like individual branches with precision. This mask type is especially handy for fine-tuning specific parts of your image, such as darkening a distracting element.
One of the standout features of the objects mask is its ability to intersect with other masks, such as the linear gradient. Evans illustrates this by applying a linear gradient to an already masked branch, darkening only the bottom part to enhance the shadows. This combination of masks offers a higher degree of control, allowing you to create more nuanced edits with ease.
In product photography, the objects mask proves equally valuable. Evans uses it to edit a photo of a watch, selectively brightening the watch face while adjusting the strap's appearance. The precision of the objects mask means you can make subtle yet impactful changes without affecting the rest of the image. Check out the video above for the full rundown from Evans.
I believe Lr is like PS I have really never used PS. Ok, Some years ago Trey Ratcliff used PS about the same way getting final images that no one could ever get or make the same image because of all the parts he played with. Also Capture One has been like Lr for a very longtime as well PS, the one problem was it saved all in a file separate from original file and sometimes a whole file full of images.
One of lightrooms new object pickers is if you did the sky and then picked a tree (without leaves) it will do the entire tree leaving opening between all the branches so then you also get adjustable sky through the branches, great for doing night sky behind the tree.
While LR is picking up some useful tools from PS, the Remove tool is not there yet. Cloning/Healing in LR is only good for blue sky sensor spots imo. There is a good reason the Photo Bundle includes both LR and PS.