A Quick Tutorial on Using Lightroom's Masks for a Powerful Portrait Edit

In the last few iterations, Lightroom has taken some remarkable steps forward in its masking capabilities, offering powerful and precise tools in tandem with some of its classic features that allow you to not only make precise edits, but take images in entirely different creative directions. This awesome video tutorial will show you a quick walkthrough on using the new tools for adding creative lighting to a portrait. 

Coming to you from Colin Smith with photoshopCAFE, this neat video tutorial will show you how to add background and rim lighting to a portrait using a combination of Lightroom's classic and new and more advanced masking tools. If you have not tried out the new masking panel yet, it really is worth taking an hour or so to test it out and get acquainted with it, as it offers some powerful steps forward that will make your edits both more precise and efficient. Of course, you do not want to rely on post-processing to make drastic lighting changes, as this can result in a loss of image quality if you start to push files too far, but for exploring your creativity and/or making your normal edits, the new tools are hard to beat. Check out the video above for the full rundown from Smith.