Lightroom’s Object Selection Mask dramatically simplifies complex edits, saving you from hours spent meticulously brushing or correcting adjustments. For anyone editing landscapes, particularly those with intricate details or multiple layers, this tool can make your workflow more precise and efficient.
Coming to you from Christian Möhrle - The Phlog Photography, this practical video illustrates exactly how powerful Lightroom’s Object Selection Mask is for isolating complicated elements quickly. Möhrle demonstrates adjustments by targeting specific features—like enhancing a glacier to stand out against surrounding terrain—using the rectangle selection method rather than conventional brushes. You’ll appreciate this approach because it lets you quickly achieve accurate masks without losing time to tedious fine-tuning. The real value here lies in Möhrle's methodical layering of masks to selectively adjust exposure, clarity, and color temperature, revealing details without affecting adjacent areas.
The tutorial progresses from straightforward masking tasks to more sophisticated applications, showing how you can use multiple masks to shape and emphasize natural lighting within the scene. Möhrle shows how to selectively brighten distant mountains while keeping darker foreground elements untouched, demonstrating clearly how subtractive masking works seamlessly within Lightroom. Understanding this technique is critical if you often edit landscapes with varying depths, as it allows you to maintain natural shadows and highlights that guide the viewer’s eye through the image. You’ll also learn how to enhance depth and dimensionality simply by adjusting highlights, whites, and shadows through precise masking—techniques valuable in giving landscapes a realistic yet captivating appearance.
What's particularly beneficial is how Möhrle walks through refining masks, ensuring they blend naturally into your photograph. Rather than settling for masks that look artificially precise, he subtracts unwanted areas using linear gradients and brushes, softening edges to maintain realism. Additionally, he covers advanced combinations, like intersecting radial gradients with object masks to selectively adjust complex areas—like brightening distant terrain without affecting nearby peaks. These nuanced adjustments can significantly elevate your final results, giving your images a more polished, professional feel. Moreover, Möhrle introduces a balanced approach to color grading and sharpening, ensuring your edits enhance details without pushing the image into unrealistic territory. Check out the video above for the full rundown from Möhrle.
And if you really want to dive into landscape photography, check out our latest tutorial, "Photographing the World: Japan II - Discovering Hidden Gems with Elia Locardi!”
