Mastering Lightroom’s Masking Tools
What’s the secret to creating a great photograph? What are the elements that make a photograph successful? Truthfully, even though photography is how I make my living, I’m not sure I can give a concise answer. It would be too long-winded to fit into one little article. What I can say somewhat concisely is that good photography is a dance between science and creativity, objectivity and subjectivity, and luck and craftsmanship.
Masking is one of the most powerful tools we have for the craftsmanship aspect of our photography. Lightroom Classic’s masking tools make it significantly faster and simpler for photographers to develop and stylize their work, ultimately making the goal of creating a “great photograph” that much easier.
Lightroom’s Updated Masking Tools
Masks aren’t new to digital photography or even to Lightroom. Essentially, if you have used localized corrections in Lightroom, then you’ve used masks. In the most recent update to Lightroom’s masking tools, Adobe repackaged many capabilities that were already there; they just weren’t previously called masks. But this wasn’t just a rebranding exercise—the tools have gone through a significant makeover.
For starters, the old Localized Correction tools in Lightroom consisted of the Adjustment Brush, the Radial Filter and the Graduated Filter. There wasn’t much to them,
