Enhancing your photos by targeting specific areas with masks can dramatically improve their quality. Here's an advanced technique that will help you take greater control.
Coming to you from Nathan Cool Photo, this informative video demonstrates the use of mask intersecting in both Lightroom Classic and Photoshop. Cool starts by explaining a common problem: wanting to dehaze just the mountains in a photo without affecting the entire sky. He shows how to use the masking tool in Lightroom Classic to select the sky and apply dehaze selectively. However, this method has its limitations, prompting a deeper dive into Photoshop for greater flexibility.
Cool begins by demonstrating the process in Lightroom Classic. He selects the sky using the masking tool and applies the dehaze adjustment. This technique dehazes the entire sky, but Cool introduces the concept of mask intersecting to refine the selection further. By intersecting the mask with a linear gradient, he isolates the mountains, ensuring that only they are affected by the dehaze adjustment. This approach allows for more precise control, but Cool emphasizes that Photoshop offers even more powerful options.
Moving to Photoshop, Cool duplicates the layer and applies the dehaze filter using the Camera Raw Filter. He then selects the sky and uses the Quick Selection tool to refine the mask, ensuring only the desired areas are selected. By creating a new group from layers and adding a layer mask, Cool demonstrates how to use the gradient tool to apply the mask intersection. This method offers more flexibility and control compared to Lightroom, allowing for precise adjustments and blending.
Cool highlights the advantages of using Photoshop for mask intersections, such as the ability to save presets and apply additional adjustments. He demonstrates this by adding a color balance layer to correct the color shift caused by the dehaze filter. Using a clipping mask, he isolates the adjustment to the dehazed layer, fine-tuning the colors to achieve a more natural look.
The video also covers the use of mask intersections in portrait photography. Cool shows how to select the subject using the Object Selection tool and create a brightness/contrast adjustment layer. By grouping the layers and applying a hide-all mask, he isolates the adjustment to the subject, allowing for targeted enhancements without affecting the background. This technique is particularly useful for fine-tuning lighting and contrast in portraits. Check out the video above for the full rundown from Cool.
I hate to spoil all that work clicking this and that! You picked the mountains separate form the sky, well just use the brush and zoom in and adjust the diameter size and feathering and other things. the brush has gotten very good staying in the lines as moving along a filling and you get a selection of all basic sliders as well some extra that include color selections.
Been using the brush for years to do milky way editing to get a blue ocean just zooming to 200 to 300%. Also before the subject option brushing inside limbs on deadwood trees to separate from a sky also using the brush.
The image is a redo with current Lrc but is a Bracketed 3 at +/- 1ev that when using just one image the camera NR is off so it left dead and hot pixels. Today Lrc get rid of the bad pixels when merging all images but before had to use the spot removal. The bottom line for the brushing was mainly for the tree limbs and the water to the left back some years ago with this 2015 image I play with off and on, and back in 2015 there was no info on the capture of a MW and the bracketing was just an idea of mine out in the field. Also ask any MW editor and the brush is used also for the way part as well as the Pegasus area for the legs have to be zoomed in on to trace them to be seen in the image.
Sometimes we get to the point of over working an image.