Adobe’s Lightroom masking feature introduced less than a year ago has revolutionized the workflow for many photographers by automating the tedious task of creating individual masks for specific parts of the image. body of the image. This AI masking feature allows photographers to easily separate the foreground from the background, easily subdivide parts of a portrait, and apply different edits to individual parts.
Object selection has been added to help define and edit individual parts of the image. All of this has helped speed up the photographer’s workflow, allowing time to focus on the creative side of photography.
In the latest update, 24.2, you now have the ability to make these edits through all your images from one set via AI technology. The masks that you set parameters are now saved and applied to all your images thanks to AI technology. If your model moves position in your shot, the AI will calculate the mask corresponding to the new position and apply them to the hair, face, skin, pupils, and anything else you have set to correct. mask correction, which speeds up your entire retouching process. There are some caveats that I found, but I’ll cover those at the end.
In this article, we will look at the basic types of editing using the Person Masks option. However, it works with other AI masking options and images.
Put your edit
Set a baseline for your edits to base edits, then select your mask, in this case a human face.
Choose your mask
Adobe added people selection to Lightroom’s masking feature less than a year ago. It detects people or people in your frame so you can create individual masks for everyone in your photo.
- First, choose the masking tool and Lightroom will quickly detect if there are any people in the frame.
- Then an icon will appear with the thumbnail of the person. Select icon.
- In the drop-down list that appears, uncheck Entire person and select the mask you want for your edit.
In this example, I have selected all seven. Remember to choose to create seven separate masks and then click Create Mask.
Edit your mask
Choose how you want to edit your mask by clicking on the mask and then editing accordingly. Although in this case I selected all the masks, I only decided to edit four of them: hair, iris and pupils, face and body skin. Should I decide in another image that I want to edit the remaining masks, since they are already created I can.
Save your presets
Once you’re satisfied with your edits, it’s time to save them as presets. Go to Development > New Preset.
In the pop-up that appears, name your new preset and, if desired, create a new group. If you don’t create a new group, the new preset will fall into the Default User Group which is usually found at the top of the presets.
Tick all the boxes
Well, you don’t have to tick all the boxes depending on what edits you used in your image, but you do have to make sure you select Create Mask and tick all the masks that you want to continue. As mentioned earlier, I have it all checked so it speeds up the editing process if I later want to edit a specific mask in the image.
What masks can you use?
You can add any of the AI masks indicated below depending on the type of photography you shoot, and these will be done with your new preset. Other masks that work when converted to different images are Background, Sky, Subject, Linear, Radial, Color, and Luminance. Admittedly at the time of writing I have not tried the objects and that is simply because with objects you have to define them first by painting over them and this can cause anomalies that I will present at the end.
Apply to all your images
Now that your new preset has been created, apply the preset to all photos from your snapshot and let Lightroom’s AI do its work. A progress pop-up that appears will show you the estimated time to process. Voila, your image has been edited.
moving mask
Now that your new preset has been applied to other images without doing anything, you have the option to move and adjust any masks you’ve created. In this example, I increased the size of the radial filter and moved it up from its original position to best fit this shot from the same shot.
anomaly
The mask that Lightroom’s AI generates is based on the people selected and how Lightroom detects the elements within them. For example, it is a man with a beard and the AI, while detecting the skin on his face, will ignore the beard. Do not add to that mask through any means prior to creating the preset, as this is not part of Lightroom’s AI detection. When you do this, the part of the mask that you added (or removed) continues to be an area that is shifted to the rest of the preset in the same position. So if your model moves position, all AI and all other edits will be applied wherever they moved to and the added/subtracted area remains static, creating anomalies. often in your edits. At this point, you can go in and adjust them accordingly by adding or subtracting.
Raw camera
Another point to note is that if you follow the same process in Camera Raw using the masking features there and then save the preset, it will automatically be added to the presets. before of Lightroom in the same group and name that you created in Camera Raw. If you already have Lightroom open, you’ll have to restart it to allow the changes to take place, then add a new preset. When I create a preset in Lightroom to see if it updates the preset in Camera Raw, so keep that in mind. Maybe it was a step I missed, so if it worked for you, please let me know in the comments below.
Conclusion
Hands down, this is a big time saver. The AI’s ability to automatically detect and select subjects in one image and apply masks and retouches on the rest of the images is particularly impressive, helping photographers of all skill levels to accessible. You can create presets for individual parts of an image — people, hair, skin, face, etc., and so on, and apply them with the click of a button to any shot you make. presently. With continued advances in AI technology, I hope we can see even more exciting developments in photo editing.
