If you're still editing your photos in Lightroom Classic the same way you always have, the addition of AI-powered masking could significantly change your approach. Adobe's updates have transformed what used to be complex adjustments into simple and powerful masking tools that provide better results faster.
Coming to you from Anthony Morganti, this practical video explores how Adobe’s recent AI enhancements in Lightroom Classic are reshaping photo editing workflows. Morganti details how traditional editing, which mainly relied on global adjustments followed by minor local tweaks, has shifted significantly toward using masking to achieve more precise edits. Instead of making broad adjustments that affect the entire photo, masking allows you to target specific areas—like skies, vegetation, or architecture—with precision. Morganti illustrates this clearly by demonstrating how adjustments that previously took longer or required more effort now take mere moments. His examples highlight the ease of adjusting skies for contrast and drama, selectively sharpening foreground elements, and balancing exposure precisely where needed.
Morganti also highlights the new landscape masking tool, a particularly useful feature for anyone working with detailed landscape or travel images. This AI-driven feature identifies distinct parts of your image automatically, like vegetation, natural ground, and architecture, enabling you to enhance each individually without manual selection. Morganti shares practical insights on how selectively adjusting brightness and contrast in different areas of vegetation or architecture can bring out detail and depth in your photos effortlessly. For instance, he shows how quickly you can create tonal variance in grass by adjusting brighter and darker greens separately—a subtle yet impactful technique.
The real strength of masking, according to Morganti, is its flexibility across various types of photography—not just landscapes but also wildlife, architecture, and more complex scenes. He demonstrates editing a complex image featuring a sculpture, building, and reflective elements, showing how targeted masks enable rapid yet detailed adjustments. Even wildlife images benefit from these precise edits, as Morganti explains by quickly enhancing a hawk, emphasizing its sharpness and contrast against a subtly darkened background. The video makes clear that, although these precise edits may sound time-consuming, Adobe’s AI tools simplify the process significantly, actually speeding up your workflow. Morganti suggests that embracing these newer methods can improve the quality of your final images while also making the editing process more intuitive and less time-intensive. He encourages anyone who’s hesitant to adopt these tools to reconsider, demonstrating that the advantages clearly outweigh the familiarity of older, less efficient workflows. Check out the video above for the full rundown from Morganti.
