Lightroom: We’ve Come A Long Way
Adobe’s photography app Lightroom was the image management tool. Photoshop used to be the main editing app. Lightroom Classic is a great app for 90% of what photographers require.
The masking tool is one of Lightroom’s most useful features. It was added relatively late, but it has been a great addition. Photographers often adjust color and exposure in certain areas to draw the viewer’s attention to specific parts of an image. These selected areas need masking in order to keep us from wandering off the area that we are currently working on. Lightroom’s tools for masking have grown in power over the years. They have also been subtly updated in terms of the interface. We will be exploring Lightroom’s incredible masking tools today and showing you how to use them. Will include the April 2023 update which added tone curves.
What Are the masking tools?
Lightroom Classic’s interface has evolved a little in the past couple of years. Masking tools have their own section that appears as a popout when you select it. The right-hand tabs are located beneath the histogram of the Develop Module. A window appears underneath the icon on an image without masking. You will see the three masks, Subject, Sky and Background, at the top. Each mask does what it says, but you may need to tweak the masks to make them perfect.
Six additional icons are located below the three masking tools. These include Objects (brush), Linear Gradient (radial gradient), Range and a brand new icon, People. Take a look at the basic masking tools.
